Esteemed F1 Journalist Reveals the Reason Behind Max Verstappen’s Robotic Dominance: “It’s Man & Machine”

United we stand, divided we fall. This line means a lot in Formula 1, as drivers and teams need to sync perfectly to deliver race-winning performances. In the last decade, fans have witnessed how Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton excelled in Red Bull and Mercedes, respectively. Now Max Verstappen is repeating the same as renowned F1 journalist Mark Hughes opened up about the perfect combination that is him and his team.

Talking about this, Hughes talked in a recent In The Fast Lane podcast episode about Max Verstappen and his incredible Red Bull machine. He said, “He’s [Max Verstappen] been in extraordinary peak levels… Last year he had a title-contending car for the first time… And this year he’s had in balance probably the best car in combination for qualifying and race performances and how he treats his tires.”

“He’s understood the dynamics, get the team to follow his lead as he would like, and come up with cars that respond to him in particular and that’s a subtle skill… His character is, he’s very demanding, he’s straight. They do bond, they do mesh very well that team and him,” further asserted the esteemed journalist.

“They operate very similarly… So yeah, he’s definitely one of the great and it’s man and machine,” concluded Hughes.

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Max Verstappen and Red Bull picked up the 2022 Driver’s and Constructors’ Championship in back-to-back races in Japan and the United States, respectively.

Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing, a perfect example of “man and machine”

Dutch F1 driver Max Verstappen and his team Red Bull Racing can easily be considered as the perfect “man and the machine” fit for delivering high performances. Fans have witnessed this countless times in the last two seasons.

In 2021, when Red Bull weren’t arguably as good as they are in 2022, Verstappen performed valiantly to give them wins. In races where the Bulls were not in any advantageous positions, the Dutchman made sure to hold on to the end and clinch a win against the mighty Mercedes.

One perfect example of this can be the 2021 United States Grand Prix, where Verstappen held off the mighty W12 of Lewis Hamilton at COTA. However, the Milton-Keynes-based team has rewarded their star driver with the perfect machine in 2022.

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Having less porpoising, better straight-line speed, and reliability, the engineers from Milton-Keynes have developed a beast in the name of RB-18 which helped Max Verstappen retain his driver’s championship. All in all, Max Verstappen and Red Bull look like they’re made for each other.