In 2022 for the second time, Max Verstappen became the Formula One world champion. He took his maiden win in 2021. These past two years just changed the plot of the Dutchman’s career story. But The journey from zero to two trophies holds a very struggling story behind it. Everyone saw that Max Verstappen won 15 Grand Prix last season, beating Lewis Hamilton for the second time in a row. But how can anyone forget about the little steps that made Verstappen reach his ultimate goal [to become world champion back-to-back like the legends]?
In 2020, two years after when Max Verstappen became a two-time world champion, he just claimed three GP wins. It was the era of Mercedes, the year that developed another Michael Schumacher in Lewis Hamilton, the same year in which Mercedes won their 7th constructor’s championship while Red Bull just secured three wins.
That year, the Silver Arrows brought the W11 black livery car, and it was arguably the best car any formula one team has ever made to date. With the W11, the Silver Arrows clinched 13 out of the 17 races held that year. % races less than the whole, same as Red Bull did in 2022. But things were different with Red Bull in 2020. Mercedes was indeed dominating on the grid, but the Milton Keynes-based team did not give up battling with them. Max Verstappen alone won three races and made Red Bull stand second in the constructor’s championship.
Max Versatppen’s Personal Talent Made Red Bull Believe They Are Developing Perfect Cars
The three times when Max Verstappen, with a comparatively weak Red Bull car, managed to beat the fastest car of Mercedes was indeed the result of Vertsappen’s excellence. And THIS is what made Red Bull choose the wrong direction, unfortunately. Max Verstappen himself clinched the runner-up position in the driver’s standings while his teammate Alex Albon kept struggling, finding himself among the back row, and could only get a P7. This fact somehow proves that it is not just the car and the team’s caliber that is responsible for the driver’s win. The talent and skill of a man keep the same importance.
Meanwhile, speaking about the story of the 2020 Formula One season, Red Bull’s top engineer Pierre Wache says, “We knew that sometimes building a car on edge in this way can create a faster car. So we went in this direction, and Max Verstappen, on the other hand, was already extracting lap time from it, so we kept going on the same path.”
Max Verstappen, even from the beginning, had something unique. under his tenure at Red Bull, his seat remained fixed, but the others got different masters. First Pierre Gasly, then Alex Albon, and now Sergio Perez. Whenever Red Bull brought a car, AMx Verstappen showed that he could win with it, and that somehow led Red Bull in the same direction. But as soon as Red Bull changed its direction, not only MAx himself but the team as a whole started growing, winning, rocking, and dominating.