The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya’s 35th – and potentially penultimate – hosting of Formula 1’s Spanish Grand Prix was set to go down in history as a mildly dreary and drab affair, punctuated by iceberg-meltingly hot weather and a chequered flag cameo from Robert Lewandowski.
That all changed on the 64th of 66 laps, when Max Verstappen appeared to prod the nose of his Red Bull into the side of George Russell’s Mercedes, after being advised by his team’s pit wall to move aside so as not to incur a penalty.
The reigning World Champion was set to finish third, behind the McLarens of eventual winner Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, a result Verstappen himself would have predicted, given he admitted three days earlier that he did not feel like he was in a title fight. By the end of the race, it felt more as if he was in a fight outside East Croydon station on an average Friday night.
It is not for us to suggest what exactly happened, why it happened or what motives – if any – fuelled it, but many neutrals and Verstappen’s detractors will strongly judge him negatively for the incident, which did earn him 10 seconds added to his race time, placing him 49 points behind Piastri in the Drivers’ Championship.
Old wounds, in regard to his previous acrimony with Russell, were also opened up, some of which were caused during last year’s Qatar Grand Prix weekend after Verstappen felt he had engineered a penalty against him after an alleged impediment in qualifying. For many, it might be the moment in which Verstappen firmly re-entered a so-called ‘villain era’.
This framing of the Dutchman, who is without question one of the greatest and most naturally gifted racing drivers of his, and any, generation, began in 2021, a year in which he was finally afforded the chance to go toe-to-toe with Lewis Hamilton.
It could be fair to suggest such a pantomime image of Verstappen was created by fans of Hamilton, of whom there are many. The pair clashed infamously at Silverstone and at Monza, in which blame across both incidents was equally split.
Any notion that Verstappen was responsible for how he won the championship was always complete and utter bunkum. If Verstappen metaphorically shot Hamilton in Abu Dhabi, it was Michael Masi who loaded the gun, took off the safety catch and handed it to him.
2022 and 2023 came and went in a haze of Honda-made V6 hybrid speed and ‘oranje’ flare smoke, as Verstappen left everyone trailing in his wake to take his second and third titles at a canter.
And despite some brushes with Lando Norris across 2024 – with the Austrian Grand Prix being the trip wire activating the first of his 11 penalty points he now holds after Barcelona – Verstappen seemed to slightly change his image, most definitely through the fact that he proved his worth as a driver by winning the title in what was, for the large part, not the best car. Not by a long way.
His constant chipping away and Prost-like ‘professor’ points-scoring saw him retain the title in a far more hard-fought fashion than the previous two campaigns, his spurs for the championship really earned in a fantastic drive at Interlagos, in which he left Norris and everyone floundering in the wet to reassert himself as the dominant male of the pack, like a lion amidst eager cubs.
It seemed to make even his sternest and loudest hecklers begrudgingly accept his genius.
All F1 drivers will never be universally popular, nor will many of the true greats ever go through their careers without, at the very least, the odd blemish or two. But in times of dominance-driven boredom, isn’t F1’s best tonic a figure that courts controversy, like Verstappen? Particularly in these modern times when he feels like Netflix can drive the agenda.
Not that we need an over-dramatised fly-on-the-wall documentary to create such heroes, villains, and rivalries – F1 has been producing them for years. Whether it be Hunt vs Lauda, Senna vs Prost, Schumacher vs Hill/Villeneuve/Hakkinen et al or Vettel vs Webber, it’s a constant that, like love with the world, keeps the F1 planet going round.
Perhaps the upshot is, if Verstappen is right and his title chances are over, and McLaren is set to dominate for the remainder of the season, then perhaps a good guy versus bad guy arc is what will keep this year’s championship interesting.
As the circuit’s media centre was full of people trying to pad out their reports in what was an unentertaining Grand Prix, the Catalan sun soon oppressed the sweaty backs of journalists like the fingers and knuckles of a well-trained masseuse that doesn’t know their own strength when they made their way outside to find the men at the centre of this latest controversy.
Whether you love, loathe or even feel indifferent about Max Verstappen, it is fair to say that Formula 1 with him is much more fun than it would be without him.
READ MORE – Max Verstappen makes U-turn on F1 Spanish GP collision with George Russell
I beg to differ: this kind of behavior might be entertaining in cartoons like “Wacky Races” or in arcade games. In Formula One I expect to see motor racing at the highest level, both from a technical as from a human point of view.