Max Verstappen entered the 2024 F1 season with perhaps one clear and definite goal: and it was to win the season without much ado. He had, it ought to be remembered, won the previous season in a fashion of iron-fisted dominance. And really, no other way could possibly define the manner he nailed his opponents last season.
For starters, an indication of his relentless dominance over his opponents was clearly understood by the fact that Max Verstappen won over 86% of the races held in 2023.
As a standalone stat it looks, well, much like any impressive stat.
However, you understand the overpowering effect of that number when you recount that in 2023, the flying Dutchman won no fewer than 19 Formula 1 Grands Prix. That is when 22 races were held that season.
Barring Perez, his teammate who won two events (Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan) in 2023 and Sainz, who managed to prevent Red Bull’s bull in the car from winning at Singapore, Max Verstappen, quite simply, owned the rest of Formula 1 in 2023.
Against that narrative, it wasn’t that hard to predict that for someone who claimed 19 Grand Prix victories a little over half a year ago, the season that was to come would have much simply gone his way.
However, that is where 2024 evoked a change that many would consider refreshing and perhaps, something F1 craved so desperately.
Formula 1 this year produced its own set of revelations or should one say, Oscar-worthy moments that didn’t only belong to a youngling called Piastri, but also George Russell, Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz jr., and a certain seven-time world champion Sir Lewis Hamilton.
But as F1 and its cult-inspiring heroes, who risk their lives each time they take to the wheels of the speedsters get sound rest, Max Verstappen continues to form headlines.
That is not only because of the reason that of the 14 events to have been held so far, he still has the lead in the Driver’s Standings, but primarily also because of the fact that he hasn’t been entirely successful in each of the races to have taken place.
In here, unless one didn’t think about it much, lies the Max Verstappen conundrum. There surely is one.
But to be able to understand the same with some perspective, it is important to dive into the most defiant stat from 2023 when compared to the one this year.
By the time the F1 season halted for the break, the man born in Hasselt, Belgium had won, lest it is forgotten, 12 races out of 14.
But that was 2023. What do we have this year?
Of the 14 races to have been held this year, the mesmerising talent from The Netherlands has won just 7 races.
So while theoretically, Verstappen still has claimed a win in half the races held so far, by his own redoubtable lofty standards as evident in 2023, he is struggling on the success rate.
While on the one hand, McLaren powered by a faster machine this year and a resolute pair of Norris and Piastri have risen, Ferrari’s dynamic duo of Leclerc and Sainz have been throwing a few punches.
The mega wins by Norris and Leclerc, who won at Miami and Monaco, respectively, have only exposed Red Bull’s glaring reality: that be it a new track on the grid or a fan-favourite princely circuit, Red Bull cannot take things for granted.
Furthermore, Russell’s prominent win at Austria, a bit surprising and a bit luck-assisted coupled by Sir Lewis Hamilton’s dominant triumph at Silverstone has only proved one thing.
And it’s that tracks where Verstappen was habitual of putting up a stellar show with imposing speed are no longer Verstappen-dominated.
While last year, Max Verstappen reigned supreme at the picturesque mountains serenading Spielberg, he scored only a fifth this year in an incident-plagued event. At the same time, while he struck gold at Silverstone last year, Verstappen could only manage a podium this year.
The very fact that others are rising at about the same time where Red Bull are raring to attack as one collective unit tends to expose chinks in their armour.
Their 2024 season began with a huge Horner-fueleld fiasco. What hasn’t helped the Milton Keynes-based outfit’s form is the dominant surge in form of McLaren, which is now performing akin to a rocket ship.
With Ferrari drivers managing great wins on a couple of occasions, not everything is going Red Bull, or should one put it, their main driver, Verstappen’s way?
Who knows what’s to come? To predict something with a sense of certainty in Formula 1 is akin to saying that it one knows the exact face tomorrow will paint.
Uncertainty, after all, is about as big a part of the sport as is a seemingly promising start-up declaring itself suddenly bankrupt.
But what can be said with certainty, after all, is that when F1 wakes up again from its current rest-mode, all eyes will be on a certain Max Verstappen.
Why?
August 25 will be the Dutch Grand Prix. The man in pursuit of a fourth world title, will be contesting in his home race. Last year, he won the event ahead of Fernando Alonso and that too, by an impressive margin of 3.7 seconds.
But this time around, could multiple name be vying for the top spot at Zandvoort in a bid to usurp F1’s most mercurial man called Max Verstappen?
Who knows? It’s all to play for in just a few days’ time!