How Max turned a fair fight into long victory march

WHAT defines greatness in a Formula One driver? For Adrian Newey, architect of Max Verstappen's championship-winning car, it is a multitude of things.

- Matt Majendie

But the engineer in him is often less drawn to the one-lap speed or race craft. Instead, he says: "Great drivers - and I'd put Max in that category - know what they want from the car and know how to communicate with their race engineer as to what they want and how to achieve it." 

The statistics attest to the fact that Verstappen has seemingly cruised to a second world title with 12 wins from 18 races. But it is worth remembering that long before it turned into a procession, he was 46 points behind Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, after two DNFs in his opening three races. And he was disillusioned with the handling of the RB18, far less to his liking than team-mate Sergio Perez.

The characteristics of Newey's latest creation in response to the wholesale regulation changes did not suit him.

There was little that the team could do in the early part of the season to alter the set-up to aid the defending champion. But, little by little, the Dutchman fed back to his race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, what he wanted from the car. Lambiase often can seem like a verbal punch-bag for Verstappen's in-car missives; the most recent coming after a dire qualifying session in Singapore, when his driver told him: "I don't get it, mate. What the f*** is this about?"

Lambiase has grown a thick skin, but Verstappen has mellowed, too. The turning point began as long ago as the sprint race at Imola last year, when he effectively told his engineer to shut up. Recalling that moment, Red Bull principal Christian Horner said: "Max recognised he'd maybe been a bit sharp, went to find him, got him an ice cream and apologised. Max just wants to win, so I don't have any issues with it, as long as it's channelled in a positive manner."