“Without Max Verstappen, It Would Be…”: Despite the Sheer Dominance, the Dutch Champ’s Feisty Traits Tipped to Be Crucial for F1

As new fans become invested in the traveling circus, new perspectives and opinions come to light. The recent and most popular, or unpopular, general opinion of the fans is that racing has become boring. What makes an exciting and enthralling sport like Formula 1 boring? Well, it’s something to do with the superiority of Red Bull and especially Max Verstappen. However, an F1 journalist defended the Dutchman and, in fact, called him the only saving grace of the sport.

Verstappen won a record-breaking 15 races in the 2022 season. The Dutchman and Red Bull have gotten even stronger in the current campaign with Verstappen and Sergio Perez trading wins in the first five races. This dominating nature of a particular team in F1 is not new and even the likes of Lewis Hamilton are helpless. However, the opinion that this aspect makes the sport boring is ridiculed often. In fact, speaking on the F1 Nation podcast, De Telegraaf journalist Erik van Haren believes Verstappen’s contribution is necessary for the sport.

The Dutch journalist talked about Verstappen’s confrontation with George Russell. He complimented the Dutchman for standing firm on his stance and being remorseless in the aftermath.

Van Haren said, “Of course, you can agree with him or disagree with him. He always stands up for himself. He always gives his honest opinion. I think he never lies to me. So if you’re a journalist, that’s the best thing ever, and without Max Verstappen, it would be quite boring, on and off the track.”

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This ruthless nature of Verstappen on and off the track, believes Van Haren, is the saving grace of the sport. In fact, not just the Dutch journalist, Verstappen’s colleagues also defended the “boring” tag around the sport.

Fernando Alonso defends the dominance of Max Verstappen as a part of life in F1

The Spaniard is currently second behind the Red Bull men in terms of points and race pace. Although despite being second to Red Bull, the Spaniard is nowhere near the competition in front. However, Alonso understands this aspect of life in F1 and does not deem it “boring”.

Speaking to the media, Alonso said, “If you have the fastest car at your disposal, but you start a bit further back, there are opportunities to overtake. But if you’re in one of the other cars, you’re more or less stuck behind your predecessor. As a result, we don’t see many overtaking actions further in the race. That is normal for Formula 1. That should not come as a surprise.”

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Alonso went on to claim every driver finishes a race where they deserve to. This might be up for debate as a lot of incidents happen during a race. However, drivers cannot force that for the entertainment of the fans. Let us all just hope for safe yet exciting racing in the coming weeks.