‘Insane natural talent’: How Verstappen achieved feat Red Bull thought would never be repeated

“To be honest, when I look back at this season probably in 20 years time when I’m retired, Las Vegas 2024 as a race is not going to be in my top 10,” Max Verstappen said after winning his fourth world championship in the self-proclaimed entertainment capital of the world. “But it’s still very special to win it here.”

It’s not a surprise when Verstappen has so many races to choose from in his title-winning era.

The Dutchman has spent a record 61 grands prix leading the drivers title, dating back to the 2022 Spanish Grand Prix, a run of 918 days.

With his fourth title now secured, that streak is guaranteed to run to at least 63 grands prix and 1029 days until the Australian Grand Prix.

So it’s understandable that a comfortable and non-confrontational fifth place on a chilly night in Las Vegas doesn’t rank particularly highly in his list of career achievements — save of course it being his fourth crowning moment.

He’s far from the first driver to win the title from a relatively lowly finishing, and remarkably he’s not even the first driver to do so in Las Vegas.

In fact both editions of the twice-run Caesars Palace Grand Prix, held in the eponymous casino’s former outdoor car park, also saw the titles awarded.

The first went to Nelson Piquet in 1981. The Brazilian father of Verstappen’s girlfriend, Kelly Piquet, also clinched the title by finishing the race fifth.

The second and final race at Caesars Palace saw the tie 1982 title awarded to Keke Rosberg, who finished sixth to clinch it.

Verstappen, last year the race’s biggest critic, now joins a rare and small group of Las Vegas champions.

It was a nondescript ending to a title fight that constantly threatened to burst into life through a long and gruelling middle part of the season during which Red Bull Racing lost its supremacy to McLaren, allowing Lando Norris to emerge as a title candidate.

But despite the ultimately comfortable victory, Verstappen hinted that the pressure to close the deal had been weighing on him.

“Every championship has actually been very different in emotions,” he said. “It will never top the emotions of the first one because that is what you set out to do and that’s your ultimate dream and goal to win one, so that was massive elation.

“Then the season has been very different to the second one and last year’s one, and that’s very beautiful, because if they’re all fairly similar, that’s not as exciting.

“Honestly, when I crossed the line, I was just very relieved. I was like, ‘It’s over’.”

Winning a Formula 1 world championship is never easy.

Almost 800 drivers have started a grand prix. Just 115 of them have been lucky enough to win one.

Of those 115, just 34 have gone on to claim a world championship.

Verstappen stepped into an elite inner circle with his third championship last year by matching some of the sport’s most important names: Jack Brabham, Jackie Stewart, Niki Lauda, Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna.

But today he enters an elevated realm in Formula 1 mythology.

Previously only five drivers had won four or more championships. Verstappen’s latest triumph expands that pool to six.

As of 2024 Verstappen is tied with Alain Prost and Sebastian Vettel with four titles apiece.

Only three drivers in all of Formula 1 history stand ahead of him on the championship honour role.

Juan Manuel Fangio, the original greatest of all time, had five titles, all won in the 1950s, the first decade of the world championship.

Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton are tied on seven apiece at the head of the table of F1 title winners.

That group of winners becomes slightly more exclusive when counting only those to have won four titles consecutively. Only Fangio, Vettel and Hamilton (4) and Schumacher (5) can match Verstappen’s streak.

“When you grow up racing and you see all these stats of some legendary drivers you’re like, ‘That’s very impressive and I hope one day that I can even just be on the podium, win a race, maybe win a championship’,” he said.

“It’s already hard enough to win one; of course then you also need a bit of luck to be in the right team situation to maybe win more. Luckily we did that, but I think that was more like the first three championships.

“This year we hit the ground running well, but then we had a lot of tough races. That is something I’m very proud of — that in those tough races where we were definitely not the fastest car we kept it together as a team.”

Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner has seen it all before, having guided Vettel to his four world titles of 2010–13.

The Englishman has no doubt about the Dutchman’s place among the sport’s upper echelon.

“When we did it for the first time with Seb I thought we’d never repeat that,” he told Sky Sports. “The win in 2021 was massive, and then to be standing here with Max having won four as well and joining a very elite group of champions now puts him among the all-time greats.

“He has an insane amount of natural talent and ability. He has more hunger than I’ve ever seen in any driver.

“The dedication, the application and the self-belief — I think all that combination has created one of the most phenomenal drivers I’ve certainly ever seen.”

With one more year to run under this set of regulations, albeit with the competition for victories expected to tighten further next season, Verstappen has an opportunity to boost his statistical standing further before the shake-up of the 2026 rules.

“It’s not something that I set out to do,” he said. “If it happens, it happens, but I’m already very proud to win four.

“At the end of the day, winning one or seven, it’s the same thing, right? But of course if you can repeat it a few times, that is very nice.

“Even with not the fastest car we still won it, so I always know that when I sit in the car, I’m going to give it everything I have.

“Over the last few years I also grew as a driver, and you definitely become more well rounded, so I’m also very excited to see what we can do next year.

“It’s very unknown at the moment how competitive we are going to be. For now I’m just going to enjoy the moment.”

Max Verstappen started his championship defence emphatically, taking the first seven poles and winning seven of the first 10 grands prix to establish a formidable championship lead.

Then the winning stopped.

The Dutchman went 10 long rounds without winning a race. The run was so barren he stood on the podium just four times in the 133 days between victories.

In reality the rot had set in long before that. McLaren had become a regular contender after Lando Norris’s breakthrough first victory in Miami, ever since when Verstappen had had to work for his points.

“We simply didn’t have an answer in many races where they were just clearly faster, so that made it difficult,” Verstappen said.

The reality appeared to dawn on Verstappen at the Hungarian Grand Prix shortly before the midseason break, the first race of the season at which his RB20 was simply out for the count. He executed a scrappy race to fifth while McLaren dominated in one-two formation, even railing against what he believed were elements of the team that weren’t taking the car’s decline seriously enough.

“You always have to believe in yourself, but at the end of the day it’s a lot of people that have to come together and a lot of things that have to come together with the car, especially in the middle of the season where we had a lot of issues where we didn’t really understand what was going on,” he said.

“But then I’m also very happy and I’m proud of how the team reacted, responded, and turned it around a bit.

“At one point it seemed like we were a little bit lost, but at least now it feels like it’s all a bit more normal.”

He admitted it was sometimes difficult to accept after coming off last year’s record-breaking run of domination.

“I always thought to myself already after last year, ‘Don’t expect another year like that. It’s very rare that those things happen’,” he said. “But then at one point the car was also just really difficult to drive, and then it was about just working together with the team, because when you have these tough moments, it can also be very demotivating.

“Those moments are actually very important to keep it together and actually work harder and try to understand what is going on, because even those moments you give up, you are going to give up the championship as well.”

Horner said Verstappen’s qualities as a team leader came to the fore at the team’s darkest moments.

“When he gets in the car he gives 110 per cent,” he said. “He’s done that weekend after weekend, and of course he’s had a great team of men and women behind him, but he’s led that inspiration from in the cockpit particularly on the tough days.

“I think this has been his best and hardest championship. He’s shown maturity. He’s delivered on the days when the car isn’t quite there. There’s no-one more deserving of this championship than Max.”

The points Verstappen scored in his opening dominant phase of the season set him up for success, but they weren’t enough on their own.

After beating Norris to victory at the Spanish Grand Prix, his lead stood at 69 points with 14 rounds remaining — more than enough time for the Briton and the nascent McLaren to slice down the margin as the Red Bull Racing car grew less competitive by the round.

But today, after the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the margin stands at 63 points. In the last 12 races Norris has managed to close the gap by just six points.

All that despite Verstappen taking just one more pole and one more race win since Barcelona.

It’s not enough to say Norris and McLaren squibbed it. Yet to finish lower than sixth this season, Verstappen has ensured his would-be rival never had an opening to strike.

“For most of the season, I would say for 70 per cent of the season, we didn’t have the fastest car, but actually we still extended our lead,” Verstappen said. “That is definitely something that I’m very proud of.

“We remained calm most of the time and we barely made any mistakes.

“We really maximised or even overperformed in some places, plus our opposition also in a few places definitely didn’t grab the points that they should have. All those things matter at the end of the day when you fight for a championship.”

This is the eighth drivers world title won from the cockpit of a Red Bull Racing car, eclipsing Williams’s total of seven.

Mercedes has one more drivers championship, with nine. Ferrari and McLaren lead this count, with 15 and 12 drivers championships respectively.

More interesting, however, is the unwanted piece of history Verstappen’s title sets up for Red Bull Racing.

Despite having dominated the constructors championship last season after winning every race but one, RBR is just third on this year’s teams title table and 53 points behind leader McLaren.

It will be eliminated from title contention if it doesn’t reduce the margin to 44 points after the next Qatar Grand Prix.

The first teams championship was first handed out in 1958. In the 65 seasons since then that both have been awarded, on only 11 occasions has the individual title gone to a driver racing for a team that didn’t win the constructors title.

But it’s even rarer for the winner of the drivers title to race for a team that’s finished third or lower.

It’s happened only twice.

The first was in 1982, when Keke Rosberg won in a Williams that finished fourth.

It then happened again in 1983, when Nelson Piquet claimed the crown racing for third-placed Brabham.

Unlike both of those seasons, however, when the constructors title fights hinged on reliability, for Red Bull Racing there can be only one culprit: Sergio Pérez.

The Mexican suffered another shocker in Las Vegas, starting 15th on the grid and scoring one point for 10th.

It ensured Red Bull Racing was outscored handsomely by the other top teams, most importantly by Ferrari and McLaren ahead of it on the title table.

With a 403-152 deficit to Verstappen on the championship table — he’s scored just 27.39 per cent of the Dutchman’s points, the worst comparison of any full-time driver this season — Pérez will cost Red Bull Racing the constructors title.

“We’ve got a mountain to climb in the constructors, but we’ll never give up,” Horner said. “Max has been brilliant so far this year. We need Checo to get on the scoreboard a little more over these last couple of races to have any chance.”

Verstappen hoped his title would at least be a source of pride in a difficult year for a team that could fairly argue it should have dominated both titles.

“I know that it’s been quite a tough season for us overall, also the constructors, but at least we still won one championship,” he said.