Fantastic Four

Well, it happened.

Valtteri Bottas is out of F1.

JK. I know you want to talk about the more important things, aka that big brother finally vanquished little brother. 

I’m not talking about the interview from a couple days ago where Lando said a “shot” is basically a full drink for the 5’ 3” Yuki Tsunoda. All I can say about that is Lando should be careful. I’d take Yuki in a cage match over the soft rich kid that is Norris.

Hell, given what I’ve seen this year if Yuki had been in a papaya machine, he probably would have vanquished Max for the championship. Sergio Perez’s sixth Q1 exit of the season in Las Vegas should be the last straw. Please, racing gods, promote Yuki to Red Bull in the off season.

But, no, of course, what I’m talking about is that after a monstrous mid-season by McLaren, Max Verstappen finally captured his fourth championship in Las Vegas. Surprisingly I’m not mad at it. In fact, I’m kind of inspired by it.

Verstappen, despite a couple of flashes of the old petulant “Mad Max” in Austin and Mexico proved that he can win with grace and amidst real competition.  You might say he did that in 2021, but at F1 Fanatic, we don’t recognize that championship officially for a lot of reasons.

Championship four did not come with an asterisk though. It came with a calm reserved drive. Max was so chill that he even let Hamilton fly right on by on his way to a handy second podium spot from tenth in Vegas.  Imagine if Hamilton hadn’t pulled a Perez in quali and ended up starting in tenth? He likely would have had race win 106 instead of just driver of the day.

But that didn’t happen and Georgie set the tone for 2025 with a win. This set up the hilarious drive over to the Bellagio fountains with all the podium finishers wedged in the back of a Rolls Royce. Hamilton sat on the edge of his seat and looked out the window like a first time Vegas tourist rather than engage in conversation with George or Carlos Sainz.  Maybe this is because George’s dad Toto recently said if Lewis hadn’t moved to Ferrari he probably would have had to drop Hamilton because he was nearing the end of his shelf life.

Or maybe it was the awkward fact that Lewis is only two races away from finally claiming Sainz’s seat at Ferrari. Either way, Hamilton’s body language suggests he’s done with 2024, although at Sao Paulo he seemed to suggest that might have been his last race and that Kimi Antonelli might finish out the year.

Thankfully that didn’t happen, because right now it feels like Lewis has a chance at one more dub with the Silver Arrows before it’s all over. Although, that’s also because Mercedes ran super well in the cold desert air in Vegas, something that’s probably not gonna happen the next two weeks in the Middle East as the season wraps up.

But, we’ll see.  What does seem clear is that next year, the last of the current regulations is gonna be a barn burner. I mean if Gasly’s Alpine engine didn’t give up the ghost he had a shot at a second podium in two races in Vegas. No one but his mom would have predicted that. But here we are.

Although it’s probably too much to hope that 2025 is Alpine’s championship year, it looks like it will be a righteous four-way fight amongst Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull (with Yuki only, sorry Checo) and Mercedes.

But, like we started out, one guy who won’t be in that fight is Bottas. Unfortunately, Audi capitulated to the “we need another Senna” lobby that is Brazil and went with Gabe Bortoleto. 

Bottas is, depending on who you believe, going to return to Merc as the Mercedes reserve driver or maybe Ferrari to help his pal Hamilton out with a few SIM drives. Honestly that’s the move I’d make. Why approach Toto with arms wide open when he totally kicked you to the curb for George?

Whatever happens I’m impressed with how Bottas has made this into a whole “What’s Next” social media campaign whereby he’s already completed an Iron Man Triatholon at his house on his day off. It’s unclear if it’s real or not, but it looks like he also got “what’s next” tattooed on his thigh as well.

Lando is likely asking himself what’s next now that Max is one of the all-time greats and his teammate Oscar Piastri is poised to start heading there anytime soon. It’s hard not to believe that this narrow window was Norris’s best chance, because next year Oscar is going to give no quarter, and as we’ve established the rest of the field is now jacked.  Then again in racing anything can happen.  We’ll just have to wait and see.