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Max Verstappen's father Jos' recent blog post on MaxVerstappen.com has caught the attention of fans and F1 pundits alike. The father of the reigning world champion was not entirely happy with what happened at the Monaco GP as Sergio Perez won the race while Max came home in 3rd. According to Jos, this was an opportunity wasted as Red Bull did not meddle in the race and give Max preferential treatment.
The senior Verstappen said:
“Red Bull achieved a good result, but at the same time exerted little influence to help Max [Verstappen] to the front. That he finished third, he owes to Ferrari’s mistake at that second stop of Charles Leclerc. The championship leader, Max, was not helped in that sense by the chosen strategy. It turned completely to Checo’s [Sergio Perez’s] favour. That was disappointing to me, and I would have liked it to be different for the championship leader. I would have liked them to go for Max, but of course I am not entirely objective. I think ten points from Max have been thrown away here.”
For many fans, it might come as one of the many contentious comments made by Verstappen Sr. (something he is notorious for). For others, it might come across as a case of sour grapes. If we look at this closely, however, there is some method to the madness when Jos Verstappen says that Red Bull should have given Max Verstappen preferential treatment at Monaco.
The championship battle between Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc is very close
Not too long ago, Max Verstappen was staring at a flaming Red Bull in the Australian GP, marking his second DNF in the first three races and facing a mountain of points deficit against Charles Leclerc. Since then, both Red Bull and Verstappen have got their acts together and climbed their way back into championship contention.
Max Verstappen is currently leading the championship by 9 points but that has not only been through his own doing. He was staring at a bigger points deficit against Leclerc in Barcelona when the Ferrari engine gave out. That helped with a 25 point swing in his favor. At Monaco, he was looking at Leclerc retaking the lead until the pitstops turned things around.
If it wasn't for these two significant strokes of luck, Verstappen would still be facing a points deficit in the standings. In this championship, the balance is going to ebb and flow based on the circuit and every point is going to be important.
Was there a possibility of Max Verstappen getting the jump on Sergio Perez? If only Verstappen was the first driver to pit for Intermediates and not Perez, that could have turned the race in the favour of the Dutchman. That would have meant that Verstappen would have more than doubled the points lead he has right now.
A 19-point lead in the championship sounds more secure than a 9-point lead, isn't it?
Max Verstappen has been dominantly better than Sergio Perez this season
Sure, the suggestion behind screwing Sergio Perez's race to help that of Max Verstappen sounds awful, but at the end of the day, the latter has been significantly better than the former during the partnership between the two drivers. In fact, this was the first race in their almost 18-month partnership that Perez had the edge over Verstappen.
If Red Bull has to pick one driver that will fight for the title this season then it will be Verstappen without a doubt and any suggestions otherwise don't even make much sense. According to Jos Verstappen, when there was a circumstance where Max Verstappen was struggling on a weekend, it was a chance for the team to step in and maximise the result for him, even if it meant compromising Sergio Perez to an extent.
Jos Verstappen comes from the Michael Schumacher school of driving
Now, for F1 fans, this might seem like a not-so-fair treatment of a driver within the team, but then one has to understand the school of thought Jos Verstappen comes from. He was a contemporary of Michael Schumacher! He was his teammate as well at Benetton and has seen up close how the German superstar had every resource in the team working for his betterment.
When Michael Schumacher agreed to move to Ferrari, he had a set of requirements that he felt were important in turning the team into a championship-winning juggernaut. Those requirements included anything and everything in the team modelled and designed to build a car that was fast and worked according to his driving style. His teammates weren't allowed to fight him on the track because he had already proven himself to be vastly superior to them.
By the time he had transformed Ferrari into this championship-winning juggernaut that won 5 titles in a row for him, he did face criticism for his teammates not being allowed to fight him. If it wasn't for Schumacher, however, Ferrari would not have reached those heights and that success would not have been possible.
According to Jos Verstappen, his son commands the same position at Red Bull because, to be fair, if there was any other driver than Max Verstappen in the Red Bull last season, then Lewis Hamilton would have won the title. And because of this, potentially losing those 10 points rankles him.
It could be said that maybe Red Bull gave Perez a fair shot because they did not want him to lose his motivation entirely after already asking him to move over for Verstappen in Barcelona. Having said that, though, if Max Verstappen suffers another DNF in Baku, and Leclerc takes over the lead in the championship, or if Verstappen loses the title by 10 points in the last race of the season, Red Bull might revisit its approach in Monaco because it could have been the difference-maker.
Jos Verstappen might have the facade of a cranky, off-the-cuff old man who does not know what he's talking about. This same man, however, has mentored arguably the best driver on the grid right now. So if you break down what he says, there's always meaning to it.
