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I have the impression that Max Verstappen wants to stay at Red Bull. And I’ll give you 10 reasons why.
This is the number of consecutive victories achieved by the driver of his era last season. Almost no one knew it, but he can match that feat in Melbourne at the Australian Grand Prix this weekend, something no one has ever achieved before his historic feat in 2023. He has nine consecutive triumphs, and we we almost take it for granted.
So why would he leave Red Bull, the team that gave the Dutchman the car of his dreams?
Mercedes wants it. Who doesn’t? But Mercedes is in semi-collapse to such an extent that Lewis Hamilton jumped ship to Ferrari next year.
Verstappen was toying with the idea of a decision in light of the scandal over his boss Christian Horner sending “coercive” messages to a female colleague. His father Jos might have preferred that he leave. But Jos is not there and Max wants peace. He also wants the best machines and is signed up with Red Bull until 2028.
Max Verstappen looks set to stay at Red Bull and his continued success makes it easy to see why
Doubts had been raised over Verstappen’s future due to the scandal over his boss Christian Horner’s “coercive” messages to a colleague.
But Verstappen is in his dream car and on his way to a fourth consecutive world title, so why would he leave?
He has surely toyed with the idea of moving, and I recently thought he would, despite winning the two opening races, in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Some people around him said he would rather leave than see Horner stay.
The sores persist, of course, but Verstappen said on Thursday: “I think there is every reason to be happy, right? The car is doing really well. There are a lot of great people on the team who are constantly striving for better results, so for me that’s what I’m focusing on.
“I focus on performance, I’m happy and, when I go home, I don’t think about anything else because it’s pretty fixed where I am, and that’s where I want to be.
“I think it’s definitely the best start to the year so far for me personally in the car.” It’s just a good balance, but I also think as a team we worked really well, without too many mistakes.
“Of course I’m very happy with it and I hope we can continue like this. We’re trying to continue to learn what we can do best, but it’s been very positive.
Why move, Max?
Dickson’s legacy lives on
A poignant trip to Melbourne. The last Daily Mail sports reporter to travel this way was Mike Dickson. He distinguished these pages and his newspaper for 33 years, alternately as a tennis and cricket correspondent.
But while covering the Australian Open in January, he collapsed and died. He was 59 years old. A few friends and I will raise a glass to his memory here during this sad week.
I’ll raise a glass to the memory of Daily Mail sports journalist Mike Dickson (pictured) this week
Walker adored in the antipodes
I always think of Murray Walker when I visit Melbourne. Surprisingly, the voice of motorsport was as well known in Australia as in England, a sort of Richie Benaud in reverse.
It would come here for V8 supercars, as well as F1, and broadcast with typical vim on free TV. It was part of his legend.
I remember when I started as a Formula 1 correspondent for this newspaper, he offered me his sage advice. In this first interview, he gushed about his travels to the antipodes.
“Australia,” he said in high-octane decibels, “is the most wonderful place in the world. Turn on the taps, and they work. Which seemed like a bit of a low bar, but I knew what he meant: creature comforts, I think.
He continued to progress along this path until his late 97s, often lecturing on cruises, frequently with Sir Stirling Moss.
He would be delighted from my hotel window I can see Flinders Street Station, the Anglican Cathedral, the Rod Laver Arena and the MCG.
I will be thinking this week of Murray Walker, who was as famous in Australia as in England.
It was a reverse Richie Benaud (pictured), the legendary Australian cricket commentator who became so popular in England.
Memorial for Moss
Another dedicated Daily Mail reader will be celebrated at Westminster Abbey on May 8. Sir Stirling Moss, died on Easter Sunday 2020, 58 years less a day after the Goodwood accident that ended his career, in a place he lit up with his actions. of exceptional brilliance.
It was his widow Susie’s fondest wish to organize a suitable occasion to mark Stirling’s death at the age of 90, a desire thwarted by lockdown rules.
But she died last year of a “broken heart”, after carrying her ashes into their Bond-style Mayfair apartment with all its gadgets – TV screens sticking out of the ceiling and the like – in her mourning dying.
From now on, a memorial will take place at the abbey. Sir Jackie Stewart is among the speakers.
Susie Moss (left) always wanted a fitting occasion to mark the death of her husband Sir Stirling Moss (right), and there will be a memorial at Westminster Abbey this week.
Swears Steiner should disappear
If anyone fell in love with their own advertising, it was Guenther Steiner. No one had ever heard of him before Netflix’s Drive to Survive and no one has been able to shut him up since.
To quote Bernie Ecclestone, an otherwise unknown engineer: “He gives clowns a bad name.” »
Steiner’s skill extended to swearing profusely. No one has gained so much fame from swearing. An act that is not as funny as he imagines, his record last year was finishing last of all teams, in his role as boss of Haas, now abandoned.
He says he stayed on the American team too long. A point of view with which I would not disagree. But not for the reasons he believes. The vain man claims that he has not been able to run Haas as he would like.
Well, the budget cap was intended to level the playing field, to help smaller (lower performing, actually) teams catch up, but Steiner managed the feat of finishing in last place, a weak ebb that Combined with a propensity to deliberately attack his own drivers for the cameras, Mick Schumacher is first among the victims of his crudely sharp tongue.
Steiner presents himself as something of a media celebrity working on television in Melbourne. He should, may I politely suggest, shut up and walk away into the darkness from which he came.
Guenther Steiner fell in love with his own advertising after appearing on Netflix’s Drive to Survive
F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone says Steiner “gives clowns a bad name” and it’s time for him to shut up and walk away.
Liberty’s greed is the real scandal
Nobody gives Mohammed Ben Sulayem a break. He is trying to lead the governance of Formula 1, as president of the FIA.
For a year and more, his enemies have been trying to bring him down. The worst thing that happened to him was that he was reluctant to sanction the Las Vegas Grand Prix last season.
The race actually happened because he approved his safety requirements. So this is a strange accusation to make – that of a clearly biased “whistleblower”.
The stories against him have been prodigiously told since the first day of his election in late 2021, as he seeks to assert the role of the FIA as – would you believe it? – sports leaders.
The enemies of Mohammed Ben Sulayem (photo) are trying to bring him down, but it is the greed of Liberty which constitutes the real scandal.
The malice has spread so widely and successfully that I am about the only journalist to note that he has been widely vilified in a concerted attempt to discredit him.
He doesn’t get a cent. Yet Liberty, owner of the sport, picks up every pound he can. In their greed, they extended the calendar to 2024 races. All in cash for them, thank you very much.
Imagine if BC Ecclestone and CVC Capital Partners, for whom he acted as CEO during the final years of his groundbreaking tenure that lasted until 2017, had been so blatantly miserly in this unprecedented manner of expansionism. He would have been pilloried in the highest heavens.
Liberty are testing human endurance by extending the season, 24 rounds, and I’m not a complainer on that front, or any other, and yet almost no one says a word against them. This is a scandal – and sue me if I’m wrong.