Red Bull insider pinpoints Max Verstappen's x-factor that sets him apart from everyone else

Red Bull insider Stephen Knowles feels Max Verstappen's ability to read and understand the rulebook inside out is something that sets him apart from everyone else on the grid and gives him a racing advantage that others don't possess.

The Dutch driver has been in the sport since 2015. He made his debut with Toro Rosso in 2015 and was soon promoted to Red Bull in 2016. He made an immediate impact on the team, where he won his very first race with the squad. During his first few years, however, it was not only Max Verstappen's ability to be rapid that attracted attention.

It was also his ability to think out of the box while driving that held him in good stead and even drew the ire of some of his peers. While defending, Max Verstappen had a tendency to move his car under braking and hence unsettle the car behind.

Ultimately, the FIA would intervene, and such moves were banned, but that was the blueprint of Verstappen's racing, where he would find the grey areas and exploit them. Talking about the driver on the Inside Track podcast, the Red Bull director described this as a unique quality to know each and everything in the rulebook and then exploit it accordingly. He said,

"He's got a really, really good understanding of the sporting regs and the driving guidelines. And I know that's also been covered a lot in that he's kind of made an art form of learning exactly what you can and cannot do, what you should and should not do and really kind of exploiting that."

Knowles terms Max Verstappen's ability as an area of performance

Last season as well, the Dutch driver employed some extreme tactics while trying to defend his position against Lando Norris in Austin. That did lead to pushback from a few of the pundits who termed Max Verstappen's moves as something against the spirit of racing.

Talking about the nature in which such things divide opinions, Knowles had a different stance on it, saying that he considered such ability as an area of performance more than anything else. He said,

"And it sometimes maybe splits opinion, but I think that that's an area of performance like anything else. I think that the rules that we go racing are part of the sporting landscape and making the most out of that is a big part, big area [of his] performance in the same way as raw pace is."

Throughout the years in F1, drivers have been known to take advantage of the rules of engagement at various points. It used to be this way with Ayrton Senna, who rewrote the script, but then was followed by Michael Schumacher, who was also known as the master of such a thing. Max Verstappen belongs to the same school of thought that would not just give away a position without fighting for it and sometimes bending the rules to his advantage.