Verstappen: doubts about the future
Days pass and Max Verstappen approaches this weekend’s NLS championship event at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, but throughout all this, a question mark remains from the Japanese Grand Prix: will the Dutchman really retire from Formula 1? After the Suzuka weekend, the Red Bull driver did not hide his disappointment with the new technical regulations introduced this year, going so far as to threaten to leave the Circus. In addition, with the news of his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase’s move to McLaren for 2028, rumors of his possible arrival at Woking for that season have also increased.
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The ‘curse’ of Red Bull champions
It all remains to be written, but Verstappen’s crisis of results in his first year under the new rules seems to recall that experienced by a former Red Bull driver: Sebastian Vettel. He too, a four-time consecutive world champion with the Milton Keynes team (from 2010 to 2013), the German had serious difficulties adapting to the new regulations introduced in 2014, to the point of never again reaching the top of the world, also due to the overwhelming power of Mercedes.
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Marc Surer, who was in F1 between the 70s and 80s and is now a television commentator in Switzerland, found common ground between the difficulties of the two drivers: “It’s exactly the same situation – explained the 74-year-old to formel1.de – Vettel became world champion with the blown diffuser. Then came the hybrid cars with the new regulations (transition from V8 to V6 turbo engines, ed.), the new rules, and that advantage vanished. He was a genius at practically driving into a corner and immediately accelerating to generate more downforce. It’s similar to what’s happening today with Max Verstappen, because the regulations have taken away his main strength. He had a huge advantage in fast corners because he simply had courage. That’s why his teammates always seemed to struggle so much. Now he can’t do that anymore.”
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