Lately, the powers that be came as close as it dared to demonizing it's wonder kid, Max Verstappen. I'm not going to yap a lot about corner one in the 2016 Belgian GP other than to note that this is the same dart for the inside as Daniil Kvyat pursued in Sochi but the consequences for the Red Bulls were very different this time around. Max had a poor start and in an attempt to get ahead, clearly off-track, refused to pull out of cutting in to corner one. Sebastian Vettel had a better start and in his attempt to get ahead, refused to pull out of cutting in to corner one also. The distinction for Vettel is that he was clearly ahead and that left the sandwiched Kimi Raikkonen to take the hit. Surprisingly the first sign of immaturity we've seen from fresh Verstappen ... that is up until the Kemmel straight.
Anyone worth their weight in Formula One learns the rules well enough to bend and exploit them to their half second advantage. We're seeing it this year in the completely random clamp down of track limits. Verstappen knows that holding track position until a corner allows himself to move back into the racing line towards the apex, thusly legally cutting off and blocking the car behind. In many instances this season, that battle has been Max vs Kimi and the Kimmel straight occurence is where the shit hit the safety fan.
You'll hear Max defend his driving style as giving (in this case Kimi) a side of the track to work with, wait until Kimi makes his decision, (meaning taking the only available space that Max has provided), and Max will make his "one direction" movement to shut the door on that car. Totally within the rules. The problem in this case is that Kimi is forced into a holy-shit-last-minute reaction to (hopefully) brake and avoid a full throttle collision through Max's car. Is Max's strategy legal? According to the 2016 FIA Sporting Regulations for Formula One it clearly falls within the rules. Is it smart at full throttle? Probably not and that's Kimi's point, maintaining track position is probably not worth dying over. Is Max's style wise? The "all or nothing" sure was for Senna but Max is playing the odds of a style we haven't seen lately in the sport.
Take a look at the sea of orange in this picture. In many ways, Formula One is struggling in maintaining it's public image as a successful global brand in motor sport. Max defended his style saying he didn't intend to change. A clear message to the FIA saying it's how he has arrived to this point, it works and he's not going to change it. It's exciting for the often bored fans (remember Baku?) to see this attack and defend technique so the result is a slap on Max's wrist with a pretty soft warning of a possible unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in the future. Not much sleep is going to be lost there.
So, there is now a subconcious message to the rest of the F1 field saying "Look, I'm not backing down, I'm going to defend hard, so you have no choice but to back off." This message was repeated in the media when the unapologetic Max insisted that Kimi/Ferrari were lying in his statements of the events. Then Verstappen came out and told Jacques Villeneuve that he should "watch what he says." Pretty bold words for a young gun to a legend in Formula One.
Most drivers say they like Max as a person but fear, like Kimi implied and Villeneuve spat out, that he's eventually going to kill someone with his aggressive driving style. Hopefully that won't happen. Like it or hate it, we're going to be left watching some good hard racing from Max and that's a good thing for F1 as he forces the competition to adapt to him. That is if you're behind him!
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