Unconcerned About Lewis Hamilton’s Opinion, Max Verstappen Reveals 5 Word Golden Rule to Deal With Criticism

Just like many other sports, athletes in F1 often find themselves entangled in epic rivalries. Lewis Hamilton may have remained non-competitive throughout the 2022 season but you can never rule a man like him out. That is perhaps the reason why his rivalry with Max Verstappen lives on. However, Max is currently in a league of his own and has developed an attitude that puts himself in the center of it all.

Recently, Hamilton ruled out any sort of friction between him and Verstappen. He went a step further and iterated how he respected him for what he had achieved in the last two years at such a young age. However, he had a backhanded comment for Max at the same time, expressing doubts about whether the Dutchman held mutual feelings. A recent interview reveals that Verstappen probably does not even value the opinions of people outside of his team.

In a video uploaded on Twitter by #ABTalks, Max said, “You just have to focus on yourself. You just have to trust yourself and work with the people who actually know you, the people you can trust at the end of the day. And I think that is the only thing that matters and whatever other people say about you, think about you, at the end of the day, that is their opinion and that’s fine. Everybody can have their own opinion, but you shouldn’t get distracted by it.”

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It is not just the on-track approach where Verstappen and Hamilton differ. The duo shares a vastly different approach to almost everything in life. While Lewis is an avid social media user, Max is strictly against it and once even slammed people for their excessive usage of the platforms.

Max Verstappen took a dig at Lewis Hamilton-like social media users

There are not many famous people who are immune to online abuse. Hamilton took that for years while he was on top of his abilities, winning championships year after year. Once Verstappen began to rise among the ranks, he had to endure it as well. The best solution he found to the problem was to reduce his social media activity. However, despite all of it, Lewis remains as active online as always.

In an interview with De Limburger in December last year, the Dutchman told, “I don’t feel the need to share or show my private life to the outside world, even Kelly [Piquet, his girlfriend] does it much less than before. When Formula 1 ends, I don’t see myself posting things.” [Translated using Google]

“Some people have nothing else to do all day, while I’m busy with other things. For example, I spend a lot of time on the phone, especially with my sim team, doing things with virtual racing or so on.”

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Max’s remedy of cutting himself off from opinions outside is a thing easier said than done. However, even working towards it, at the young age of just 25 is commendable.