Lewis Hamilton seeks the limelight with his bling, but his respect for Verstappen is questionable. Photo / Don Kennedy
Despite setting new records for races won and points scored in one season, double-world champion Max Verstappen and Constructors' champions Red Bull are still having to face their critics.
Verstappen's start-to-finish victory in the Mexican GP was his 14th win in 20 races, surpassing the record he shared after victory in the USGP with Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel.
He has also scored 416 points, surpassing the previous record of Lewis Hamilton on 413 points, and with two races still to go, Brazil and Abu Dhabi. Records, they say, are meant to be broken, but it helps drivers nowadays to have 22 or 23 race starts per season. Still, even with that success, Verstappen has his critics - especially from pro-Hamilton fans still smarting after last year's championship loss.
Hamilton and Mercedes boss Toto Wolff have continued to claim that they were robbed of the championship last year thanks to sacked FIA race director Michael Masi allowing racing for one decisive lap, inferring it was orchestrated to create a season showdown. It was certainly that, and Red Bull having now accepted its guilt in exceeding the FIA budget cap for the 2021 season, by less than $2 million, has simply added fuel to the fire that Mercedes began, and Ferrari and McLaren have joined in stirring up.
Verstappen had clinched his second consecutive world driver's championship with victory in the Japanese GP, and Red Bull became Constructors' champions when Verstappen won again at Austin, Texas.
When he and the team arrived in Mexico City for the Mexican GP, the big news was the FIA revealing Red Bull's penalty for exceeding the spending cap of £145m. Red Bull was fined $7m and forfeits 10 per cent of crucial wind tunnel testing time, which teams need for aerodynamic performance, for exceeding the cost cap by $1.8m. In other words, the punishment was a financial and sporting sanction for the breach, but Verstappen doubted it would satisfy the team's rivals.
"They are sore anyway, so it doesn't matter what you do," he said.
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner had taken exception to inferences from McLaren CEO Zak Brown that his team had cheated, and to ongoing comments that if Red Bull hadn't exceeded the cost cap, they probably wouldn't have won last year's championship without the extra money, stating that if other teams could stay within budget, then so should Red Bull, calling for "stronger action against those that willfully break the rules."
Horner said an overspend in catering and a different interpretation of the rules with the FIA was largely behind the issue, claiming they thought catering costs were excluded from the budget cap as it was a company-wide benefit and not something solely related to the F1 team.
"The FIA took a different view on that and said that food was not excludable. Fair enough." Horner said. "But what was included was the entire catering bill of our entire company, so £1.4m worth of food, drink, coffees."
"Red Bull Powertrains had nothing to do with Red Bull Racing until this year, and their costs are included. So, a difference of opinion on how that was applied."
"I hear people say it's not a severe penalty, but 10 per cent less wind tunnel time and other aerodynamic tools is a draconian penalty," he insisted. "They can cost up to half a second a lap. It will have an effect on our ability to perform on track next year."
Horner claims the breach of the cost cap was not willful, but an error in terms of interpretation of what was included, and the FIA statement backs up that claim.
"There is no accusation of evidence that Red Bull has sought at any time to act in bad faith, dishonesty or in a fraudulent manner, nor has it willfully concealed any information from the Cost Cap Administration," the FIA statement said.
Notwithstanding that, Sky Sport commentator Martin Brundle believes Mercedes and McLaren won't let the issue go, and Horner's call for an apology from those he says unfairly called them cheats won't be forthcoming.
"Christian and Red Bull are on the ropes over this, and I fully expect Toto and Zak and others to keep punching, because they have them on the ropes."
Verstappen arrived in Mexico and boycotted talking to Sky Sport because their pitlane reporter, Ted Kravitz, in his notebook at the end of the USGP, at least twice referred to Mercedes as having been "robbed" in Abu Dhabi last year.
"What a script and story that would have been," Kravitz said, referring to Hamilton nearly winning the US race.
"But that's not the way the script turned out today, was it? Because the guy that beat him after being robbed actually overtook him, because he's got a quicker car, because of engineering and Formula 1 and design, and pretty much because of [Adrian Newey, Red Bull's chief technical officer] over there."
Verstappen said: "This year it's been a constant… yeah, kind of like daily being disrespectful, especially one particular person. And it's enough, I don't accept it."
"You can't live in the past. You just have to move on. You keep disrespecting me, and at one point, I'm not tolerating it anymore. That's why I decided to stop answering them," he said, meaning Sky Sport.
Horner supported his driver.
"I think an accusation of championships being robbed is something we don't feel is an impartial commentary. That is, we don't feel, in any way fair or balanced."
"Max was upset about it, and as a team, we support him fully. We were equally upset about it."
However, it didn't stop Verstappen winning. After taking his 19th F1 pole position, he started the race on soft tyres, unlike Hamilton and George Russell, who began with medium tyres. Apart from the fact that Verstappen is quicker than anyone else, he has also developed an uncanny ability to look after his tyres while maintaining speed. It is a skill that four-time world champion Alain Prost used to win many of the 51 races he won in a career spanning from 1980 through to 1993.
The best example of that came in the season decider in Adelaide in 1986. It looked like the race leaders and William's teammates, Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet, would settle the title race between them. But after pitting early for a suspected puncture, Prost made his tyres last, while Mansell had a spectacular blow-out on Brabham Straight, forcing him out of the race and sending Piquet into the pits for fresh rubber. Prost won the race and took what was a consecutive title.
When Hamilton pitted for hard tyres, Verstappen went for mediums, and eventually won by 15 seconds, with Sergio Perez in third, meaning it was a repeat of last year's podium. It was not a great racing spectacle, but rather an exercise in choosing the best strategy - and Red Bull has excelled in that area this season.
"Unbelievable, what a season, and what a fantastic race!" Verstappen tweeted.
"To achieve 14 wins in a season is down to all the hard work by everyone in the team, let's keep this going @redbullracing@ HondaRacingGLB."
Without showing disrespect to Max, it wasn't a fantastic race, unless you were a Red Bull or Mexican fan, cheering for Verstappen and Perez.
"I was so close, I think, in that first stint," Hamilton noted. "But I think the Red Bulls were just clearly too fast today, and ultimately, maybe they had the better tyre strategy," Hamilton recalled.
Hamilton took some satisfaction in finishing second to Verstappen for the second race running, but he is still without a victory with just two races remaining. Intensity in the relationship between Hamilton and Verstappen remains. When the question of possible penalties for the cost cap overspend were bandied about, including taking the 2021 championship away from Verstappen, Hamilton said he wouldn't want that to happen. Verstappen says he respects what Hamilton has done, but isn't sure its reciprocal.
"People have told me that he doesn't use my name. I was always taught that you have to respect what people have achieved in sport," he told The Mail on Sunday. "I have no problem with what Lewis has achieved. He is one of the best ever."
"I know it is not only the car he has been driving. That helps, we all know that, but you still have to beat your teammate, and Lewis has done that consistently."
Verstappen has won 14 races and his teammate Perez two, giving Red Bull 16 wins in 20 races. But the cost cap overspend threatens to undermine respect for the team's dominance. History may treat the team's achievements more favourably, but Verstappen insists that fame is not important to him.
"Fame was not anything I looked into when I was a kid," he says. "I never wanted to be known. I wish I could walk around and nobody would know me."
By contrast, Hamilton thrives on adulation, arriving at the circuit in different flamboyant garb each day wearing his bling, and sees himself as a roving ambassador for diversity in the sport. The contrast between arguably the two best drivers in F1 is fascinating, but at this point Sky Sport only has the indulgence of one of them, something Kravitz has no doubt had to note in in his notebook.
Sources: F1.com, Sky Sports F1.