Petulant, emotional, and brilliant: We need to talk about ‘Mad Max’ Verstappen

Max Verstappen’s Hungarian GP saw his ‘Mad Max’ persona make a return as Red Bull’s mid-season slide continued.

After more than two years of calm serenity while dominating F1, Max Verstappen showed that his red mist-fuelled determination had just been tucked away in his back pocket during what turned out to be an intensely aggravating race for the championship leader.

Max Verstappen apoplectic as Hungarian GP challenge crumbles

Max Verstappen’s growing fury and frustration during the 70-lap Hungarian Grand Prix is completely understandable.

From feeling like he’d been shoved off the track at Turn 1 after making a good start, doing the hard work of moving into second, only to be told to move aside for the driver who had pushed him off – it set the tone early doors for what proved to be an intensely aggravating race around the hot and tortuous Hungaroring.

Understandable? Sure thing. Justified? Perhaps. But acceptable? Well, that’s where Red Bull comes in and, at this point in time, the Milton Keynes-based squad isn’t in a position to take back control and quell the monster they’ve created in Max Verstappen – not when their car is no longer F1’s standard-setter.

And ‘monster’ very much is the operative word, in so many ways. The Dutch driver is one of the most talented drivers to ever grace the grid of an F1 race, and his blend of car control, speed, and mental resilience makes him a particularly special monster – there’s no other driver right now who the others fear more having in their rearview mirrors, and there are precious few who can be relied upon to maximise a result and a car any more than Verstappen does on almost every single occasion.

But the other side of that coin is that Verstappen, by dint of knowing just how good he is, has worked himself into a position where he, as an employee of Red Bull, has managed to create an environment in which he cannot be reined in when he oversteps the boundaries of acceptability – such as what could be argued he did in Hungary with some of his highly critical radio messages.

What was justified and understandable about his response to Sunday’s race was how Red Bull did put him in an increasingly difficult position, having found themselves on the wrong side of a proactive strategy from Mercedes and, later, Ferrari. It’s something Red Bull is usually the master of – forcing its rivals into a corner by way of aggressive undercuts and disruptive stops that leave the others scrambling to respond.

But, having already been instructed to move aside for Lando Norris in a race where Verstappen knew the McLaren driver had the edge, finding himself undercut by Lewis Hamilton just stoked the flames of frustration burning deep within Verstappen – particularly in another race where he wasn’t happy with the handling of his car, despite the introduction of a much-vaunted big upgrade package brought forward by several weeks.

Having largely had the game to himself for most of 2022, the entirety of ’23, and the first few races of ’24, Verstappen’s realisation that he no longer gets to keep the ball entirely for his own amusement is the first time in his career where the upward momentum has come to a halt.

During his first years with Red Bull, he was the young challenger threatening the establishment, the plucky underdog being willed on by the masses to put an end to the empire led by Lewis Hamilton as Mercedes’ dominance ground on, year after year. Having finally climbed to the top in 2021, Verstappen has been at the summit since. But now, the descent has begun, the wins aren’t coming easily anymore, and the unease gnawing within his stomach is making itself felt – particularly as he now occupies the role of the ‘bad guy’ who needs toppling.

Red Bull’s dominance ending creates uncertainty for Max Verstappen

Red Bull’s dominance is no more – the RB20 started the year strongly but that performance has tailed off. The impact of Adrian Newey’s departure from the coal face will, of course, be played down by the team, but, with his wealth of knowledge and cunning, what can be said with a degree of certainty is that his lack of involvement won’t be helping things move forward.

Indeed, there was even a report in Italian media coming into the Hungarian GP weekend that Newey had fundamentally disagreed with some key design aspects of the RB20 and the development direction decreed by technical director Pierre Waché and aero chief Enrico Balbo – to the extent that it alleges this played a role in Newey’s decision-making to depart. How true this is, only the man himself can answer…

While the RB20 is still one of the quickest cars on the grid, even the might of Verstappen’s talents isn’t enough to keep it ahead of McLaren’s MCL38 at present, and even the Mercedes W15 – a car that couldn’t hold a candle to the RB20 at the start of the season – now looks its equal. Red Bull’s development path has seen it upstaged by some of its rivals and this, too, will be eating away at Verstappen in a year full of concerns and, indeed, temptation.

With Toto Wolff and Mercedes making it clear that the Dutch driver would be the ideal person to step into Hamilton’s empty cockpit next year, the timing of the slide couldn’t be much worse – particularly as it coincides with Mercedes’ own rise in performance. At the moment, there’s little to choose between Mercedes and Red Bull – and the momentum is with Brackley.

News also emerged over the weekend that the contract clause pertinent to Verstappen had been nullified on Helmut Marko’s pledging of commitment to Red Bull Racing, shutting the door on what might have been the easiest way for Verstappen to leave Red Bull if he so wanted. But was his anger and frustration in Hungary any way linked to that? Unlikely, given Marko’s commitment was made over the Austrian GP weekend, several weeks ago.

But what of the pressure being applied to Max by his father, Jos? On the ground in Hungary, and reported to be back on speaking terms with Christian Horner following their squabbles this year, Verstappen senior, over the Austrian weekend, said it was “correct” that a Mercedes switch for Verstappen isn’t yet out of the question. With the Marko clause apparently removed, does this legality completely stymie the ease of making a switch to Mercedes?

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Add to this his concerns over whether or not it’s Red Bull and its burgeoning Powertrains project that is the best home for him once 2026 rolls around. It would be presumptive to think RBPT can’t do the job first go, but Mercedes has a track record in the area of nailing hybrid power units for new regulations at the first time of asking – just another niggle to add to the pressure under which Verstappen currently races.

And there’s no doubt that Verstappen is under even more immediate pressure as F1 heads into a four-week shutdown after this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix. While enjoying a decent points lead in the championship, Red Bull appears to have been upstaged by McLaren to the point where the MCL38 is now F1’s fastest and most versatile car.

With worries over the direction of Red Bull and its development, Verstappen seems to sense a title that is in danger of slipping away – not a pleasant sensation during a period when the Dutch driver has been completely carrying Red Bull’s ambitions for this season, as Sergio Perez has gone AWOL through a particularly weak run of race weekends in the second RB20.

With pressure on-track and off-track, all while trying to maintain his loyalty to Red Bull, it’s no surprise that Verstappen duly bit back when he felt his team had put him in a weak position in Hungary. Never one to accept anything less than the best from the people around him, it’s this mentality that has helped keep Red Bull firing on all cylinders – even if it makes him look spoiled and belligerent when things aren’t going his way.

Gianpiero Lambiase may be well able to handle his driver’s temper on most occasions but his message to Verstappen of “Well, that’s some gentle introduction,” in the final stint was nothing short of incendiary at a point when Verstappen had been undercut by yet another car – this time, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

With Verstappen already a coiled spring, it was barely a surprise when the Dutchman went ‘full send’ on Hamilton shortly afterward and, with Hamilton never one to back out of a move when it comes to his former title rival, the seemingly inevitable collision occurred. Unlike Austria’s clash with Norris, this one had been brought on by his frustration – a lunge bordering on the desperate.

Max Verstappen isn’t changing for Red Bull, or anyone

Going back to the ‘monster’ Red Bull has created in Verstappen, the Dutchman knows that – at this point in time – he is the powermaker. There are no other drivers of his extreme talent and experience available, and losing him would be a massive blow for the Milton Keynes-based squad.

To that end, he has pretty much got free rein to do and say as he pleases, without fear of reprimand. Like what was said over team radio to Lando Norris by McLaren, championships are won by a driver and team and, on this occasion, Verstappen’s criticisms of Red Bull – on the car, the strategy, and the execution of their season in general – went beyond what is fair and reasonable and closer to being disrespectful of the efforts being made by all within his team to make him a four-time F1 World Champion.

This is where McLaren’s comments on Verstappen and Red Bull – most of which, in my eyes, are unjustified, have a ring of truth to them – Red Bull could have done more to establish control over their driver as an employee when he was still a rising talent and not the finished article he is now, but would it simply have backfired on the team by now? After all, would benching him for his refusal to obey team orders to let Sergio Perez through at the 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix have had any impact beyond simply costing themselves points? It doesn’t seem likely.

Given that Verstappen has proven, for years now, that he and his approach get the results week in, week out, it’s a hugely difficult balancing act and, as Daniel Ricciardo saw the writing on the wall in 2018, it’s too late for Horner to put the cork back in the bottle and try to wield some authority over Verstappen in a bid to introduce some introspection.

“I think people draw conclusions. Max knows what’s required,” Horner told the media on Sunday evening as he was asked about his driver going too far with his radio messages and even staying up until 3am to take part in an online sim endurance race – something Red Bull’s leadership didn’t find out about until after the fact.

“He knows what it takes to drive Grand Prix cars, to win races, and be a World Champion. We always work as a team and whatever discussions of how to improve will always not take place in the media.”

It’s difficult to argue with this, given Verstappen’s evidence, even if logic suggests such a late night without switching off his brain isn’t ideal preparation for an intense Grand Prix against stronger rivals – perhaps this online endurance racing is a mental escape, a warm blanket, for Verstappen to retreat under when he feels under a barrage of attack.

With his tremendous successes, even the most pointed of comments from the likes of Sky F1’s David Croft and Nico Rosberg – both of whom made their disapproval of this decision clear – crumble under the most basic of scrutiny, at least on this occasion.

Either way, as Verstappen made clear when he said his critics can “f**k off” at the end of his media session on Sunday evening, the Dutch driver isn’t changing for anyone, no matter how much they want him to.

He is, by and large, every bit the same aggressive, petulant, emotional, and raw talent that bounced into F1 almost 10 years ago. This petulance, this inability to accept that, sometimes, he just might be in the wrong, is both his biggest weakness and his greatest strength – it’s very difficult to mentally defeat someone who knows, without any shadow of doubt, that everything they do is perfection itself.

Seeing Verstappen put in a race where his youthful exuberance and temper were on full display after more than two years of serene sailing suggested he had matured into a relentless machine of infallibility, it was a welcome reminder that like all the very best of his World Champion predecessors, Verstappen is just as flawed as any – and the fact that there is always a ‘Mad Max’ loitering just a few small setbacks away doesn’t make him any less special.

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