After winning the world title in Formula 1 World Championship 2022 with four races to go Max Verstappen revealed some details about the current season which saw him struggle, at least for the first part of the season, with Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc. And one of them seems to be right a “slap” to the Maranello team and to the work done during the championship then won well in advance for the Dutch Red Bull.
In the press conference reserved for the new world champion after the verdict of the Japanese GP, by the way, the 25-year-old driver revealed the moment he understood that he would also win this World title: “I believe that the moment I thought we were going to win was after Paul Ricard left, when the advantage increased significantly. We had a very competitive car, I knew that the fight with Ferrari would be fierce in the following races, but I told myself that what we had achieved was a detachment that we could no longer waste”.
After the French GP, therefore, Max Verstappen understood that he would become world champion. Nothing strange, if it weren’t for that setback from the 2022 World Cup, this statement seems to confirm a lack of consideration for the opponents he fought on an equal footing. After Paul Ricard game indeed at the end of the season there were still 10 races and 2 sprint races left with plenty of points still available for Leclerc and Ferrari to be able to easily overturn the qualifying situation he saw at that moment the Red Bull driver 63 points ahead of the Monegasque. A clear advantage, therefore, but not in such a way as to justify the certainty of winning the world title with half a calendar to go.
It is clear, therefore, that giving this certainty to the Dutchman at that point in the season was something else, that is, the low consideration of rivals who so far had shown that they could go toe-to-toe with him and RB18. After Paul Ricard game indeed Ferrari Wall’s List of Strategic Mistakes (in Monte-Carlo and Silverstone the most serious), for those committed on the track by Leclerc (Imola and Le Castellet) and the F1-75 reliability issues (the sudden breaks were sensational as the Monegasque led first in Barcelona and then in Baku), it was already over. Such, yes, give Max Verstappen the consciousness of being able to easily win the World Cup (as it was then).
In addition to the lack of consideration for what had been seen so far in the season, The Dutchman’s statement sounds like a slap in the face for Ferrari as well as regards the car’s development capabilities during the current season.. In fact, until then, in terms of performance, there were no big differences between its RB-18 and the F1-75. In fact, even before the French GP, Leclerc on board the red had won the Austrian GP on what is the Red Bull track. It is therefore clear that the Dutchman never considered the hypothesis that from Maranello they could bring developments to Leclerc’s car better than the upgrade package that Red Bull had designed for their RB-18.
Source: Fan Page IT
I’m George Gonzalez, a professional journalist and author at The Nation View. With more than 5 years of experience in the field, I specialize in covering sports news for various print media outlets. My passion for writing has enabled me to craft stories that capture the attention of readers all over the world.
