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Max Verstappen defiantly dismissed criticism of his driving after winning his fourth Formula One world title in Las Vegas last weekend.
Speaking ahead of this weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix, the penultimate round, Red Bull the driver insisted he would not change his ruthless style, which has been both chastised and criticized.
“On the track, I’ll put everything on the line,” he said. “I will not retire. I want to win. This should be the end result. Some people criticize me for this. But most of them don’t have a championship mentality, so they don’t understand and never will understand that approach.”
Verstappen won the title despite not having the fastest car for the second half of the season. However, while under intense pressure, he was aggressive in both attack and defence, the legitimacy of which was questioned by other drivers, including title rival Lando Norris. Former world champion Damon Hill also took it to task, as did ex-driver Martin Brandl, who believed it had “tarnished” the world champion’s legacy.
Verstappen previously dismissed this as British bias against him, which he repeated in Qatar.
“The problem in F1 is that 80 to 85 per cent of the media is British and I felt that some of the things being written about me were not fair,” he said. “At the end of the day, yes, [I have four titles] and they are the ones in front of the microphone. I speak up. I don’t care. If I don’t agree with something, I’ll tell you.”
Verstappen also reaffirmed his commitment to stay at Red Bull, which he had announced immediately after taking the title in Las Vegas. He won all four titles with Red Bull, with whom he is contracted until 2028, but said he did not feel the need to prove anything by securing a championship with more than one team.
“It’s not like I’m trying to win the world championship somewhere else,” he said. “It would be very nice if you could just stay with one team and compete there forever. I would like to believe [that could be with Red Bull]. That’s the goal. Am I worried about inheritance? No. I don’t value my success because of what other people say.’
Verstappen has the drivers’ world title but the constructors’ title, which means the most to the teams and determines the size of the prize money each receives at the end of the season, remains up for grabs in these final two rounds. McLaren, who have not won it since 1998, before either of their current drivers Norris and Oscar Piastri were born, go into the meeting at Lusail with a 24-point lead over Ferrari. Sealing the title would be the culmination of a long and painful comeback for the team.
With 103 points in the table from the last two rounds, they need to clear the Scuderia by 21 points to complete the job in Qatar and ensure they are 45 clear ahead of the final round in Abu Dhabi. With this weekend being the final host of the season for the sprint format, a maximum of 59 points can be scored at a circuit where last season McLaren were extremely fast and Ferrari struggled. However, in the first practice, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc topped the timesheets ahead of Norris and Piastri with Carlos Sainz fourth.
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