“If overtaking is an art, Max can draw jolly well”
Published on 27 October 2014 by Bas Winckels
Verstappen fans had the opportunity to watch all of Max Verstappen's races this season live, thanks to the live stream on fiaf3europe.com. Anyone who tuned into the live feed, will have encountered the infectious enthusiasm and excitement of commentators David Addison, Dave Richardson en Chris Hartley. Taking turns, the three covered the Formula 3 European championship. We spoke to Addison and Richardson at the Hockenheimring, where they provided coverage for the last round of the championship. A week later, we caught up with Hartley via Skype. Among topics, we discussed Max' performance and the Euro F3 season in general, in which the rookies made a lasting impression.
Hartley was the commentator during the first round and he saw it all unroll before his eyes: “There was quite a buzz about these new young drivers coming in. And straight away in qualifying we could see how close it was going to be. The expectation was that maybe for the first few rounds at Silverstone and Hockenheim that guys like Tom Blomqvist and Felix Rosenqvist might have the advantage, because they were already several years in Formula 3. But straight away at Silverstone, the rookies were up there and gave the regular guys a run for their money. I think it's been the most exciting year that I can remember in Formula 3 racing. Most weekends we had three different winners and loads of different drivers on the podium.“
“This year, there have been a lot of regular podiums that have been interchangeable with the rookie podium. That reinforces how strong the rookies have been”, says Addison. “I think it illustrates how competitive the championship is. But also it is the best barometer of finding the talent. If you’ve got a championship with experienced drivers like Rosenqvist and Lucas Auer and they’re being beaten regularly by the rookies like Esteban Ocon or by Max, that is the best way of showing a talent like Max Verstappen. This season probably is the most competitive we have seen.”
Around the outside in Les Combes
When being asked for their most memorable moment of the season, Addison doesn’t need any time to think: “Spa, race three. Up to Les Combes. Ocon gets around the outside to get the lead. I was commentating on the race and I thought: that is a great bit of driving, to go round the outside, into Les Combes to get the lead. And then Max just went around the outside of him! Ocon brakes, ready for the corner and Max just goes around the outside into Les Combes, gets the lead. He didn’t miss his braking point, he didn’t wallop the kerb, he just got the lead. And that was a fantastic bit of driving. And if there was anything that was going to affect Ocon psychologically, it was that move. He just worked so hard all the way from La Source, Eau Rouge, up the hill, all the way to Les Combes to get the move and to get the lead. And Max just went straight around the outside. Fantastic!”
Richardson could not agree more. “And to reinforce how impressive the whole Spa-weekend was”, he adds: “I was at another racing event somewhere in Europe, and I’ve seen in increasing group of people watch the Formula 3 live stream in the media center. They were all watching a race that took place at a different track! Generally, Formula 3 has provided some incredible racing this year and that hasn’t always been the case.”
Hartley defines the second race of Max at Imola as his highlight of the season: “As a neutral spectator, most of the exciting racing has been around Max, as was the case in Imola”, he explains. “Around 90 percent of the interesting things that weekend were happening around Max. That drive to get through from eleventh to second in Imola was pretty spectacular. Also because of the context of it: he tried to do the same thing in the first race, and he pulled off some fantastic manoeuvres, but they did not come off. Then he got sucked into a few of the battles, he got hit and he got a bit of a tally-off from the officials. But with all that weighing down upon him, he went and did it all again and got his moves to perfection. For me, that was the drive of the season, particularly because everybody talked about how difficult it is to overtake at Imola. And then he did the opposite."
Increased maturity
Addison: “Max is one of the people who can race and this is why it’s so great that we’ve had him in the championship. There are some people that will go into the race with the mindset ‘you can’t overtake in Formula 3. I’m sixth on the grid? I’m going to finish sixth’. Max goes into a race and thinks: ‘I’m tenth on the grid? Good Lord, I need to work hard here’. And he does. He passes two off the line, two more in the first corner, and he keeps going. He’s an attacker, that’s why he’s great to watch.”
Max became more mature in his racing in the course of the year. It was obvious to the neutral viewer. Addison: “At Pau, he was breathtakingly spectacular. I watched at the Foch-chicane. There, he would burst into view: he’d be on the kerb, he would be sideways, the tires would squeal, you could hear the throttle go bam-bam-bam-bam and he’d been through the chicane and away. And it was like ‘wow… what just happened?’ But in the races he made a couple of errors, where as Ocon was smooth, less exciting, but smooth and finishing races and taking points. In the early part of the season Max was very quick but a bit wild. But Spa was a different Max. It was because he was quick and error-free. And he was so fast and so brave, and that was the weekend that made him stand out as the complete package.”
Richardson saw the change happening at the Nürburgring, where the car failed: “Instead of spitting his dummy out of the pram, and allowing the car to blow itself to smithereens, he cruised the car back to the pitlane. He was very sensible about it. He actually moved the car into the pitlane by hand, to make sure he didn’t impede anyone else that was coming into the pitlane. It was just so, so mature. And then when he exited the car, if it would have been you or me, we’d be kicking seven bells of crap out of the bloody thing. But he didn’t: the steering wheel didn’t go flying. Instead he had the presence of mind to put the steering wheel back on the car, push it over the pit-in white line and give it to the marshalls to get it out of the way. Other drivers would have just stormed away in a tantrum, but not Max. And that was impressive.”
Before the season started, Addison and Richardson had only heard of Max as being the son of veteran Formula 1-driver Jos Verstappen coming into car racing. But they were sceptical about a second generation driver being successful. “If I’m brutally honest, so often in the past they’ve failed to live up to the expectation,” Richardson states. “I often think it’s a little bit of a disadvantage, because you carry a name that was successful in the past. It can prove to be a handicap. It certainly hasn’t in Max’ case, but there are plenty of examples that we can give you where it has.”
“Overtaking is an art”
Hartley’s first acquaintance with Max was at Laghi in Italy, where Max joined the Rotax Max European championship as a guest driver. “What I remember most about that weekend was not the final race itself, but the last qualifying heat that determined your position for the finals. And he’d already had two second place finishes and a win, so he was already going to be quite high on the grid. He went into the last corner of his last heat in second place. And second place or third or fourth would have been good enough for a good grid position for the final. But he went for this ridiculous move and he pulled it off! So I was immediately impressed with the fact that he wasn’t really thinking about anything than trying to win that race. And he won it.“
What stood out to Richardson was the fact that they quickly learned Max wasn’t necessarily going to play to the rules of Formula 3 in the sense that it was pretty much defined where on a track you could overtake and where not. “Accompanying Max at every venue has been this banner, “Overtaking is an art”, We’ve mentioned it several times on-air that this really encapsulates what it’s all about. And if overtaking is an art, he can draw jolly well, can’t he?” The races on Spa were definitely the best illustration of that. “People had a master class in how you overtake in a Formula 3-car there.”
Something big
In the course of the season Hartley, Addison and Richardson knew ‘something big’ was coming, having talked to Jos during the race weekends about Max’ plans for 2015. But obviously he could not share more details with them. The general expectation was that an announcement for Formula Renault 3.5, GP2 or even DTM was in the make. But none of them expected a direct promotion to Formula 1, only a few days after Max was presented as a member of the Red Bull Junior Team. “The fact that Red Bull believed in him and were prepared to push him forward, that was not a surprise at all,” says Addison. “Formula 1 was!”
Richardson can still vividly remember that conversation with Jos. “When I asked Jos: ‘what are your plans for next season with Max?’ he had a twinkle in his eye, and a smile erupted, and he said: it will be big”, he says. “And I said: ok how big? I can’t say. What big? I can’t say. And I tried very, very hard to get some more information out of him and I didn’t, I failed miserably. But we shook hands, and we parted and he just winked. When the announcement came, I thought ‘you wily sod! You could have told me, and I would have kept it quiet, haha!’”
“I’d be surprised if anybody expected him to be in F1 that quickly, but I wasn’t surprised that he would get there at some point,” Hartley comments. “I’m glad that he’s been given a chance and I think he’s proved that he is worthy of that chance by his performance in free practice in Japan: he was four tenths slower than Kvyat and he wasn’t even pushing. I think he’ll do well. I think he’s in the right place for a young driver to be nurtured, as Red Bull and Toro Rosso have shown over the years.“
“Honestly, I don’t think he will be on the podium, because it’s too competitive and the car is not a race winning car”, Addison remarks. “I think that if he could go through the season, scoring points regularly and not making mistakes, outpace his team mate – whoever that is – that’s success. But it won’t be easy to do that. If he’s on the podium: amazing. I suspect that that would be a wet race, with freak circumstances, but I can’t see him winning a Grand Prix, not in an STR. But I can see him doing a good enough job to be promoted to a Red Bull, which would also be a mark of success.”
Key success factor
Maturity will probably be the key success factor in Max’ Formula 1 career, especially at this young age. Hartley: “Everybody is talking about his age. What is more impressive to me is the fact that he has adapted so quickly to whatever had been thrown at him. Whether that’s been a Formula 3 car, or now a Formula 1 car. He seems to be able to get up to speed very quickly, literally.”
Commenting to a race is a difficult job, especially when a race is boring. To what extend has Max made the lives of the Formula 3 commentators easier this season? “Much easier,” Addison responds. “At the start of the year, when he was the man on the kerb, or he was the man sideways, or at Pau in the wall. He brought drama with him. But the fact is that he’s a good overtaker. So having had a grid drop at the Nürburgring, you know that he’s going to make progress. At Hockenheim: you know he’s not qualified so well so you know he’s going to make progress up through the field. It has been great to have him on the grid, because you can see a talent and he’s a racer: he never ever gives up.”
Richardson: “His racing has personality. It has its Max-stamp all over it, just because of the way he has driven. So for me he has become a huge character. And I agree wholeheartedly with what David has said: it has made our lives easier. “
Nigel Mansell
“Max nearly always gave me something to talk about, and most of that was positive,” Hartley explains. “As a neutral racing fan, I’ve always enjoyed watching somebody who is prepared to overtake, who is prepared to have a go, and more than that somebody who isn’t confined by the rules that people have set. People said you can’t overtake in Formula 3, you can’t overtake in that corner. Max just sees a car in front, he sees a corner and he goes for a move. I’ve always respected that type of driver. When I was growing up, my racing hero was Nigel Mansell: he never gave up. There was always something happening around him. If some problem put him back down the field, you know he’d still come through, he would still try and win the race, or he’d still try a ridiculous manoeuvre around the outside of a corner. So you never watched him and thought ‘well, we know what’s going to happen now’, you always watched it and knew something was going to happen, but it was always unpredictable. And I think Max is like that: he’s a born racer. And if he’s able to carry on that same style in Formula 1, I think he will have a massive fan-base.”
Max’ personality makes him stand out from other racing drivers. “He still looks like a late teenager,” Addison comments. “On the podium there’s no jumping up and down with delight. He stands there, almost looking a bit overwhelmed. He’s not punching the air, there’s no Schumacher-leap when he gets onto the podium. He just stands there, and he puts his Hankook cap in the right angle, and he takes his trophy. He’s just won his tenth formula 3 race in his first season of car racing, and he stands there as if you’ve just offered him five euros for pocket money!”
“I spoke to him as he was heading towards the press conference at the Norisring”, Richardson adds, “and he’s so polite and gracious. When you say: ‘well done, man!’, he will respond ‘thank you very much’. Almost is if he wants to say: thank you for asking, thank you for talking to me. He’s a really nice and personable young man.”
“He struck me as being a very grounded person. Very sensible, not letting the situation change him,“ Addison says. “He’s the same Max Verstappen as he was at the start of the season. He has not become a different character for the wrong reasons. And I hope that he stays like that in Formula 1!”
