Max is super quick but mentally still a child. Some of it is ruthless competitor edge which all the champions have to some extent, especially the Schumacher and Sennas of the world. The difference with Max is he just isn’t learning any lessons and I think the leaders or idols in his life are the ones who are failing to teach him. Horner for example is a pretty fine leader of people but he has seemingly laid down the red carpet for Max and his errors instead of calling him out when it’s needed. You know who Max could do with? Ron Dennis. Someone who identifies talent but has the leadership in him to set out the boundaries when someone has got it wrong. Ron had his faults and sometimes was suffocating from what we read and I suspect the answer to solving Max Verstappen lies somewhere in between a Christian Horner (protector) and a Ron Dennis (constructive critic).
Joleon Palmer has leapt to his defence and saying he's being unfirly criticised for what he did as a 17 year old, except it's since he's been at Redbull that the problems have occured.
For me, Palmer is doing a Horner and sidestepping the key point about Verstappen - that his attitude goes beyond cynical ruthlessness and disrespect for the rules. His "win at all costs (to everyone else)" attitude is right up there with the worst we've seen. He doesn't care how dangerous he is to anyone else. He believes (to the depths of his soul) that he is entitled to do whatever it takes for his own interests, regardless of whether someone could be seriously injured or killed. No, Palmer, no. All racers know what yellow flags mean. It's not acceptable to say "But I might lose pole". It's also not acceptable for Palmer to lay some of the blame at the team's door. The logical extension is that, if a marshall had been killed, Palmer would be saying "of course it's a tragedy, but Max had no choice because there was a chance he might have lost pole, and his team didn't tell him to obey the rules". From Ched's excellent post...
On behalf of the whole not606 forum, I think we speak as one when I say 'no'' Have just read the responses and ched has got it spot on about not knowing if there was a secondary accident further around the corner etc. How Palmer can defend such a flagrant breach of yellow flags, which are there to aide the safety of drivers and marshalls, in the quest for a fast lap is unbeleivable. I hope other drivers, both past and present, roundly take a dump on him from a great height for backing Max up on this one. Does it need to be reminded to him that a driver lost his life because he felt double waved yellows did not apply to him and carried on at race pace when he should have backed off and probably felt there was no obvious danger? from his point, it was his bad luck that he hit the recovery vehicle, but from the marshalls point of view lucky for them he didn't wipe them out as well. That is the harsh reality of Bianchi's accident.
When Hamilton was in his first year of F1 he should have won the World Championship against a teammate who was a 2 time world champion. In his second season he did. Do you think Max could have done that if he had come into F1 with the same experience as Hamilton or does his ego/temperament simply outshine his talent?
Max is fast, but he just can't race without losing his head. Hamilton has had his head up his arse moments, but it was always evident there was a serious champion there, and he's learned from his mistakes. Max just isn't evolving. With Leclerc on the scene, I'd say his chances or becoming a future champion are seriously diminished, simply because he buys his own hype. Even given a car a county mile ahead of the competition, he'd have the ability to bin it in traffic. His temperament is all wrong. Oh.. and he's a bit of a knob.