Why RATTLED Verstappen risks throwing title lead away in struggle with returning F1 problem

After the first seven rounds of the 2024 Formula 1 season, Max Verstappen was romping towards what seemed a certain fourth successive championship title. The Dutchman had won five races, earning him a commanding lead in the standings, and was driving by far the quickest car in the field.

Combine those factors with the momentum he and his Red Bull team had built by mercilessly dominating F1 in 2023, and the idea that this year’s title was there to be contested for anybody else was utterly fanciful. But fast forward six more rounds, and Verstappen is at risk of throwing away his advantage.

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In Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix Verstappen finished a lowly fifth, over a pitstop behind first-time race winner Oscar Piastri in the McLaren, which has gone from midfield contender at the start of the campaign to the fastest machine on the grid thanks to an equally irrepressible and unexpected rate of development from the Woking-based squad.

Piastri’s team-mate Norris finished second in controversial circumstances, the Brit cutting Verstappen’s lead out front in the drivers’ standings to 76 points. That is still a significant gap, but Verstappen has won none of the past three races, finishing on the podium only once, and is no longer driving a car with such a significant speed advantage over its rivals that he can cruise on stretches of tarmac belonging entirely to himself.

Instead, Verstappen now needs to truly race his rivals on race weekends again, for the first time since the very early part of 2022. And the signs are that this returning problem is unnerving him.

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The 26-year-old has already caused a collision with closest challenger Norris, taking him out of the race in Austria as he refused to give up the lead of the race despite clearly not having the pace to do so.

Verstappen has always been a driver who harnesses extreme aggression and bloody-minded perseverance to win, operating on the limit of what is acceptable on track to break his opponents. That is simultaneously what makes him so brilliant at his best and so petty and juvenile at his worst.

And in Budapest on Sunday the negative side took hold as Verstappen sank to a new depth of belligerence, obnoxiousness and self-righteousness. Having lost out to Norris at the start, he drove off the track before rejoining in front of the McLaren, compromising his own race by refusing to give the place back until instructed to do so by race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase.

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As the McLarens drove into the distance throughout the rest of the race, an immensely irritated Verstappen proceeded to engage in an offensive tirade against Lambiase and the rest of the Red Bull team over the radio.

“It’s quite impressive how we let ourselves get completely undercut and just completely **** my race,” Verstappen complained after his first pitstop.

After a succession of further expletive-laden interjections from Verstappen, he lost it further following his final stop, responding to a request from Lambiase to manage his tyres with: “No mate, don’t give me that that ****,” Verstappen hastily retorted. “You guys gave me this **** strategy - I’m trying to rescue what’s left.”

And finally, after steaming into Turn 1 with far too much speed as he desperately tried to pass old rival Lewis Hamilton, Verstappen was straight on the radio to try and blame the Mercedes man for what was evidently his own error. Lambiase was having none of it.

“I’m not even going to get into a fight with the other teams, Max,” came Lambiase’s reply. “We’ll let the stewards do their thing. It’s childish on the radio. Childish.”

After the race, a typically bullish Verstappen – who had been online until the early hours of Sunday morning conducting sim-races - refused to apologise to his team and doubled down on his disillusionment with their approach to the race.

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“Of course I wasn’t happy,” Verstappen said. “On a day when you’re already slower than the McLarens you try and hope we do the right things with the strategy and that was not the case. That’s why today was a tough race for us and naturally that frustrates me.

“I don’t think we need to apologise, we just need to do a better job. I don’t know why some people think you can’t be vocal on the radio. This is a sport, if you don’t like it, stay home.”

This kind of attitude – Verstappen believing he is always in the right and things are better off when he is allowed to say and do as he wishes – is abrasive and uncomfortable to listen to, but has taken him to three world championships already. It is unlikely to change and logic dictates there is little reason it should.

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But things are different now. Verstappen is no longer comfortably driving the fastest car on the grid, and a fourth title is nowhere near guaranteed given the pace advantage McLaren clearly enjoy over Red Bull as things stand.

In the past three races alone, he has twice cost himself a glut points by succumbing to his own anger and causing collisions. With his team clearly needing to develop the car if he is to be able to match the McLarens’ newfound pace, railing against them throughout the entirety of a grand prix with a plethora of insults and profanities is hardly the kind of motivation that people generally respond well to.

In essence, Verstappen is at risk of throwing away the advantage he has in this year’s title race if he continues to reach such extreme levels of frustration and allows it to compromise his driving.

A 76-point lead is still massive with over half of the season gone. If Verstappen can just knuckle down in races where the McLaren is the faster car, avoid errors and collisions, and maximise his own race result, he can comfortably win the championship.

If he persists in creating conflict with his colleague and collisions out on circuit, though, he could find himself in real bother sooner rather than later.

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