I think it goes without saying at this point that four-time Formula 1 World Champion Max Verstappen is a generational driver talent. He’s certainly among the best to ever do it. He’s also an insufferable asshole who uses his car as a weapon. Saturday night, ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix (which Verstappen easily won) he allegedly threatened Mercedes driver George Russell with putting “his fucking head in the wall.” During Saturday’s qualifying session Verstappen driving unnecessarily slowly caused Russell to check up on a build lap, for which he was assessed an unprecedentedly minor one-place grid penalty, gifting Russell the pole position.
According to Verstappen, it was Russell lobbying hard for him to receive a penalty for the relatively minor and allegedly inadvertent on-track incident. The pair were summoned to the stewards on Saturday night after qualifying. Verstappen, who had qualified on pole, had the honor stripped with a subsequent one-place penalty.
“I couldn’t believe that I got it, “ said Verstappen. “But in a way, I was also like, yeah, I’m not surprised anymore in the world that I live in.
“I was quite surprised when sitting there in the stewards’ room what was all going on.
“Honestly, very disappointing because I think we’re all here, we respect each other a lot and of course, I’ve been in that meeting room many times in my life, in my career, with people that I’ve raced and I’ve never seen someone trying to screw someone over that hard. And that for me… I lost all respect.”
Max losing respect for someone isn’t exactly newsworthy. It seems he has very little respect for anyone on the race track, why should he respect them off it?
Russell, speaking to press in Abu Dhabi ahead of this weekend’s Grand Prix, had some thoughts about respect and driver decorum. He is, after all, the director of the Grand Prix Driver’s Association.
“I find it all quite ironic seeing as Saturday night he said he was going to purposefully go out of his way to crash into me and ‘put me on my f****** head in the wall,’” Russell told select media including RACER. “So, to question somebody’s integrity as a person, while saying comments like that the day before, I find is very ironic, and I’m not going to sit here and accept it.
“People have been bullied by Max for years now, and you can’t question his driving abilities. But he cannot deal with adversity. Whenever anything has gone against him — Jeddah ’21, Brazil ’21 — he lashes out. Budapest this year, the very first race the car wasn’t dominant, crashing into Lewis [Hamilton], slamming his team…
“For me, those comments on Saturday night and Sunday were totally disrespectful and unnecessary. Because what happens on track, we fight hard, that’s part of racing. What happens in the stewards’ room, you fight hard, but it’s never personal. But he’s taken it too far now.”
Recounting the interaction, Russell said that Verstappen told him “I don’t know why you would want to screw me like this. I’m so disappointed in you. I was going to not even race you tomorrow, I was going to let you by, but now if I have to, I will purposely go out of my way to put you on your f****** head in the wall.”
In the end the penalty didn’t matter, Max got ahead of Russell on the first lap and never looked back. It’s things like this that will forever mar Verstappen’s legacy. He may be an immensely talented driver, but driving in a way that could endanger the lives of fellow competitors should never be accepted in modern Formula One. Max has certainly earned a reputation for being overly aggressive, and one day his actions are likely to put someone’s fucking head in the wall. I hope he retires before that day comes.
