He took pole in the opening race of the season.
A 1:29:708 at the Sakhir, home to the Bahrain Grand Prix, set the RB-19 on course to a dazzling result, which was achieved a few hours later in the form of a season opening win.
Now, he’s set the fastest time in Q3 at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to put Red Bull on pole position again.
Max Verstappen, who made his intentions clear at round one of this season is intent at winning the final round race as well.
And why not? After all, winning comes easy to Red Bull and their main-man; the current world champion; the driver who has quite simply smashed the rest of the grid.
Hasn’t he? There are good drivers. There are great drivers. And then, there are drivers that are perhaps as mesmerising given their pure talent as they are polarising.
History, truth be told, not afford Verstappen the kind of infallible love that greets Sir Lewis Hamilton for the Red Bull driver is accused of stealing a title that belonged to Sir Lewis even as nothing could be slimier than accusing Verstappen who was inside the car and not in the stewards’ room in calling that strange 2021 call.
That said, it is pretty clear that Verstappen will always be regarded as one of the most consistent performers of the sport, the man who put Red Bull back to a position of dominance that the Milton Keynes-based outfit had experienced back during Sebastian Vettel’s reign, circa 2010-13.
Where the next few hours stand, then the track considered by some as dull or perhaps remotely exciting by most others (in comparison to a Monza or Silverstone) will likely see yet another Red Bull win.
In a season where things have mostly gone Red Bull’s way but with the exception of the one rare occasion at Singapore where Ferrari usurped the Constructor’s champs, one can’t confidently say that the Scuderia or Mercedes or even McLaren will succeed at stopping Max and his bull.
Not that Carlos Sainz, the only man to have stopped Red Bull from winning a race this year, wouldn’t want that.
But again, it’s highly unlikely that the now famous Spaniard can do so; having had an atrocious weekend given his usually consistent standards.
Sainz suffered yet another sorry outcome in the build-up to qualifying spinning out in the approach to a right hander at Turn 3 during FP2 at the Yas Marina.
Not that his confidence was shattered by an error of judgment on his part as what was also, as per the Spaniard, an error induced by “dirty air from the car.”
Regardless, beginning the final race of the season from sixteenth wouldn’t be too desirable for the determined driver, don’t you think?
Not that things are looking as bad for the man in the other Ferrari, the driver piloting the SF-23 #16, the Monegasque whose remarkable jump in form in the past few races have turned around a corner for the Scuderia stable. Quite frankly, if there is a driver on the grid, who by virtue of pure race pace and the confidence earned from qualifying result may succeed in stopping Verstappen, then it’s Charles Leclerc.
Behind him stands Oscar Piastri in a McLaren in third and ahead of him is the shark of the grid: Max Verstappen.
Leclerc’s dominant P2 in qualifying is about as exciting as it is somewhat surprising in that the man who was actually down by a second in Q3 suddenly produced a result that took him to second on the grid. What more could Ferrari want? A win, right? What more could Red Bull want?
Yet another win would be their 21st out of 22 held so far with the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix having been cancelled.
But then what would Mercedes or McLaren want, both of whom have failed to do what their rivals Ferrari have managed insofar? A win, what else?