Formula One is at present a very ‘nice’ place to be. Gone are the torrents of abuse the drivers and team bosses would bandy around at their competitors and also it seems the team mates in 2025 are all the best of friends.
Zak Brown almost praised the sacking of Red Bull’s Christian Horner claiming any enmity between McLaren and the Milton Keynes based squad could now be put behind them. The implication was clear, the former Red Bull boss was portrayed as a ‘trouble maker.’ “There’s always going to be some political aspects to the sport, but I think it is going to be healthier with Laurent. I’m a fan of Laurent. I have known him for a long time, and it’ll be good to go racing against him,” said the McLaren chief in Budapest.
He goes on to suggest the off track issues between the two teams “”went too far” with accusations being made by Red Bull over flexi wings and water cooled tyres. Of course is was Brown who ignited the touch paper which caused the rift between McLaren and Red Bull, when he penned an open letter to the FIA branding Red Bull “cheats” during the cost cap breach rows back in the autumn of 2022.
Peace in the Piraña club
Toto Wolff too has lost an adversary in Horner and the legendary public rows between the pair are now gone. Peace now reigns in the Piraña club where once ‘kill or be killed’ was the moto as espoused by the likes of Ron Dennis and Flavio Briatore.
The last great adversarial on track battle, was between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton during the epic tug of war between them that was the 2021 season. The British driver ruthlessly took out his rival in Silverstone with a tag from behind and Max returned the favour come the Italian Grand Prix.
And before this came the titanic battles between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton, which saw both drivers taking each other out, the most spectacular at the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix. One lap one at turn four, Hamilton went for the inside line, but failed to complete the move successfully, sending himself and his team mate into retirement in the gravel.
Now the new papaya rules are preventing such on track antics between the McLaren team mates, where fair but firm racing is only allowed by the team. Whether the battle between Piastri and Norris can remain in the ‘nice’ arena, is yet to be seen given one will become an F1 champion, whilst the other will miss out on maybe their best chance of winning this title in their career.
Verstappen: The paddock ‘villain’
The biggest pantomime “villain” left in Formula One is now Max Verstappen. He get’s booed by English fans regularly as they remember his brutal defeat of their hero Hamilton back in 2021. In their minds he “robbed” Lewis of a record eight world championship title, despite it being the race director who bent the safety car protocols in the Dutchman’s favour.
Red Bull too have been on the receiving end of the fans ire, and as Christian Horner pointed out this would be entirely different if the team were running “English drivers.” Yet the rough and tumble of Formula One has been an essence in the sport since its inception. The might of the European manufacturers was pitted against the small English ‘garagista’ teams, with the David’s often coming out on top of their Goliath continental rivals.
It now appears Max Verstappen is undergoing something of an image relaunch with English motorsport journalist, Chris Harris recently completing a documentary about the four times F1 champion. “The thing you need to know about Max Verstappen is that most people in the UK have got him wrong, and that’s why I suppose I’m not proud of the film, but I think we’ve not done a job in repositioning how people think about him,” Harris explained on the Chris Harris on Cars podcast.
“What we’ve done is we’ve let you see who he is. And frankly, he’s one of us. He’s a very, very uncomplicated man who happens to have been born with a set of skills to drive a racing car in a manner that none of us can really understand,” said the former top gear presenter.
Ex-top gear presenter eulogises over Max’s personality
Harris is known for his outspoken nature and rarely pulls his punches when commenting on all things motor cars. Yet even the hard nosed journalist, could find no reason to criticise Verstappen. “And I sound like I’d be an absolute sycophant here, but I tell you, if he wasn’t, I’d tell you he was a dick head, but he really wasn’t. He was everything people had told me he would be.”
Given the ever present complaint from Red Bull’s ex-team principal about “British media bias”, this documentary by Harris now clearly flies in the face of that accusation. Following on from Harris’s compliments, Ginapiero Lambase has opened up on his relationship with the Dutch driver.
GP as he is known in the paddock has been Verstappen’s race engineer since he joined the team back in 2016. Speaking on a YouTube ‘Behind the Charge’ feature to celebrate Verstappen’s 200th race with Red Bull Racing, Lambiase portrays a much warmer image of the Dutch driver than his on track aggressive style of driving would suggest.
“Here at the track, Max, he’s portrayed as the villain of the paddock, but away from the track, he is the complete opposite,” said GP. “He’s the most sincere, gentle giant and a very likeable character. I consider him a top friend.”
F1 rookies look up to Verstappen
Of course the voice in Max’s ear each race accepts there are more challenging traits in the Red Bull driver’s character. “Max’s limitation? His stubbornness,” GP recalls with amusement. “He knows best, and that is an engineering challenge: to try and get yourself under his skin and into his head.
“I’ve come to accept that, even if at the time, he refuses to take in your recommendation, actually, he is absorbing it like a sponge, and he won’t admit it, but he will then go and do what you’ve asked,” Lambiase admits.
Max’s race engineer describes him as a “generational talent” to be compared with “[Michael] Schumacher, Lewis [Hamilton], and he has taken on that mantle. And I think what he’s brought to this paddock… You see it in his relationship with the rookies nowadays, they’re all looking up to him and aspiring to be him and to achieve what he’s achieved.
The ‘nice’ place F1 is becoming
“So, I think Formula 1 needs to be grateful for that,” concludes Lambiase. What we the fans are grateful for, is a skilful driver who lights up even the most dull of Grand Prix races. His drive in the torrential rain in Sao Paulo last season from P17 to win by over 20 seconds was the possibly greatest in living memory.
The efforts at a rebrand for “villain” Max Verstappen to a “gentle giant” nice guy, as Lambiase describes him, are merely a product of the current culture within the sport. We now even have to protect five year olds who have apparently taken time to watch an FIA’s driver press conference, from hearing language their parents allegedly don’t want them to hear.
Even the culture at Red Bull Racing will slowly become eroded, from the “us and them” siege mentality which Horner developed as part of his team building motivation. Now with a “sensible” engineer in charge of the team, the focus will presumably on internal matters only for Mekies, and the paddock politics will be driven by the likes of Zak Brown and Toto Wolff, the only charismatic business leaders who remain in charge of an F1 team.
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If it were not for the 2023 Formula One season and the remarkable 21 wins claimed from 22 Grand Prix by the Red Bull team, this year from McLaren would be hailed as one of the most dominant years in the last decade.
Now 299 points ahead of Ferrari in second place, the papaya liveried cars can wrap up the constructors’ championship come the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. And with the leader in the driver’s title race now 97 points ahead of Max Verstappen in third, its clear this year’s champion will be Oscar Piastri or Lando Norris.
Come the chequered flag on Abu Dhabi, one driver will be elated by becoming only the 35th ever F1 champion, the other will be devoted at the missed opportunity, which may only come once in a driver’s career. In fact with the 2026 high regulation changes coming for the F1 car design and new power units, it is highly likely another team will ace the new rules, leaving the McLaren duo battling for the odd win and podium…. READ MORE
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
