Max Verstappen admits he needs to change his approach.
After Verstappen crashed out in the dying moment of FP3 at Monaco Grand Prix, everybody seems to write an elegy for him. 2016 Formula One World Champion Nico Rosberg said, “at the moment everything is going wrong for him, and I don’t have much hope for him anymore.”
There are valid reasons for these elegies and prime among them is that he is not learning from those mistakes. The FP3 shunt is remarkably similar to the crash he had in 2016. Every one thinks that he needs to learn from mistakes he made. Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said, “he needs to learn from it [FP3 crash] and stop making these errors.”
The criticism that he is not learning from mistakes he committed is correct, but we also assumed that he is not going to make amends as he previously said that he is not going to change his approach.
In an interview to F1.com Max Verstappen admitted that he needs to change his approach now.
“I know what I have to do and what not. I cannot permit myself to go all in and see what the outcome is. That’s just the situation I am in at the moment.”
Christian Horner echoes him and said, “I think a modified approach will benefit him.” And added, “he has a very good teacher in the car next door to him.”
Indeed Max has to learn a lot from Daniel Ricciardo. And he showed his maturity and brilliance during Sunday when he finished 9th after starting from the back of the grid.
“I just didn’t want to go too risky [on Sunday] and have a crash because I cannot be in that position now. I think I did everything [in the race] with a certain margin. If I would have taken a bit more risk I don’t think I would have got past the guys ahead of me.”
During the race Vettel found it difficult to overtake Daniel who was driving a car which was down with power by 25%. Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso criticised the Grand Prix because of the lack of overtakes. But Max had no such problems. He made quite a few overtakes and the move he made on Carlos Sainz showed why he could win the World Championship.
“I enjoyed myself out there, passing a few people and having the right strategy,” he said. “Starting last I managed to get two places straight away at the start which was good.
“From there it was just a case of trying to pass. At times it was easier than others, with different drivers and engines on the straights, but I still managed to squeeze past a few drivers so that’s always good.
“It wasn’t where I wanted to finish, looking back on the whole weekend with the performance of the car. But if you have to start last with the problem I had with the crash I had in practice, you do the best you can.
“It’s positive. The car is really strong. Of course not on every track we can show that potential because of the deficit on the straight but it’s good to know we have a good car.”
There is a famous line in the movie Rocky Balboa, “Every champion was once a contender who refused to give up.” Right now Max has to remind himself this. After these mistakes he now knows he can’t take things easy. It’s time for him to put the ghosts of these mistakes to bed and get what he is capable of achieving. I will end the post with another famous line from the movie Rocky Balboa, “Now if you know what you are worth then go out and get what you are worth.”
What kind of reply are you looking for? Or is it just the clicks?
‘Maturity and BRILLIANCE’??!!?
Seriously? I’m getting fed up with the hype and hyperbole surrounding this juvenile upstart! For Gods sake, he’s in a car that was the class of the field and he went from 20th to 9th.
Have a look through history and you’ll find two performances that easily bested this, without the hype that they should have received.
In 2006, Schumacher was penalised for stopping at Rascasse during qualifying. He lined up 22nd and finished 5th.
In 2010, Alonso crashed out in FP3 and started from the pit lane, effectively 24th, yet still finished 6th.
Max drove ok but please don’t suggest it was anything other than that.
And Panis started 14th in 1996 and won…………….
Hamilton and Alonso didn’t complete any on track overtaking purely because they were already in the maximum position for their cars. Vercrashen had the best chassis in the entire field, of course he is going to overtake the weaker cars. As SyracuseVerse said, it was a good drive, hardly one to be discussed in comparison to Shui 06 or Alonso 2010.
I really dislike comments like “Verstappen needs to do this or that” or “he really doesn’t learn”. That Horner is pissed: I can imagine. But if it wasn’t for the likes of Verstappen et co, hordes of people wouldn’t watch F1. They make races interesting to watch. Nobody likes races where everything works out just fine: especially in Monaco where without drama we would just be looking at a a fast merry-go-round.
He sometimes makes stupid mistakes: yes. He sometimes drives brilliantly: yes. He is always aggressive: yes. Currently he is the salt of F1, a world which blands the mix fast.
That people want to compare him to their favorite, wanting him to come up short: there are lots of ways to talk people down.
I call bullshit to this whole naysayer movement.
Fair enough I suppose. You still need to address why an F1 driver in his 4th year has has 8 accidents in 6 races…………
To finish his quote “I just don’t know how to go about it”…..