They said it was over. Champion Max has mellowed. Champion Max has matured. He’s gracious, less impulsive. He has a calmness.
Well, that didn’t last very long.
Max Max is back baby and he’s here to run you off the road.
Last week at Austin and this week in Mexico, Verstappen’s weaponization of his Red Bull has likely tripled Lando Norris’s life insurance policy premiums.
By the way, let’s acknowledge that’s what’s involved here. It’s one thing to be taking sides cheekily in an F1 battle, but we are talking about life and death really. At speeds of 200+ miles an hour, the margins are mica-thin. If Lando isn’t one of the greatest drivers of all time and at least a slightly conciliatory human being, one of Max’s recent moves could have ended with someone dead.
This isn’t Senna gently placing his wheel into Prost’s. This is high speed almost sociopathic assassinry from Max. And it has to stop. Twenty seconds in penalties is not enough. Although I was surprised based on past FIA deference to champions that he got even that slap on the wrist. But, he did, which tells you just how undeniably unsportsmanlike Max’s driving has been in the last few races.
Even Christian “Whiny Spice” Horner standing in front of the press waving a graph no one but his race engineers could understand claiming Red Bull was robbed was not compelling to the FIA this time.
But was it enough? I’d have gone for a full removal of points in Mexico City. That 18 point difference between Max and Lando in the last race would have been meaningful. It would have signaled business. But Max instead got a chance to fight back and took the bite away, sacrificing only ten points of his championship lead
And now, with four races left and 47 points between Lando and Max, to catch the champ almost seems an impossible task without a DNF. Or maybe that the FIA didn’t come down hard enough will force Max to make another dumb move putting his championship more at risk?
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A Tribute to Haas
No one had Haas taking 6th place in the constructors by this point in the season. No one. And yet, here we are. KMag made the Haas look like a Mercedes for the first half of the Mexico race. Nico Hulkenberg has been a quali and race beast. I know we were all sad that Guenther Steiner and his four-letter word soliloquys about wankers and what not felt like a huge loss. But, man Ayao Komatsu has built a winning culture that’s undeniable.
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Porridge Posse Update
My main man Valtteri Bottas seems to be counting down his last days in F1. That seems like a bad beat for a ten-time race winner. There’s still an outside chance VB gets the last Audi seat, but it seems more unlikely the closer we get to the end of the season. This week Bottas hinted he might be a back-up driver for Mercedes next year which can’t be good news. If that does happen, I might be cheering for Kimi Antonelli to get a short bout of the flu just so I can see the Finnish Dlash one more time in a Silver Arrows. Hopefully our porridge pounding VB finds his way on to the grid in 2025 though.
You know what I think about Mad Max!!! Excellent article! It is about time he was put in his place! Wonder if it will stick, though?