Alpine’s Pierre Gasly believes that Red Bull’s Max Verstappen employs “quite smart” tough driving tactics to ensure he achieves Formula 1 Championship success.
Verstappen’s aggressive wheel-to-wheel racing has been subject to heavy debate through various engagements with title rival Lando Norris in 2024.
It’s a narrative that has followed the Dutchman for much of his career and rightly or wrongly has yielded positive results.
Having raced the Dutchman since karting, Gasly can’t help but see why Verstappen employs these tactics as he nears his fourth successive F1 world title.
“I think we can all tell, all of us who raced him in karting [that it] was the same,” Gasly told select media including Motorsport Week.
“Many starts I ended up in the grass because Max started behind me, and it was just the way he used to race back then.
“He’s also quite smart at using the regulations and takes everything up to the limit, and when you’re fighting for a world championship, that’s what you will expect a guy like him to do as well.”
Wheel-to-wheel clashes between Norris and Verstappen in the United States and Mexico City Grands Prix respectively ignited debate throughout the F1 paddock.
Some argue that Verstappen takes things over the limit, others that he simply employs the regulations as they are written, similar to Gasly’s thoughts.
One thing is abundantly clear and that is the fact Verstappen is one of the hardest racers on the F1 grid.
It’s a trait that has been employed by previous F1 greats such as Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher.
However, Gasly noted how the Red Bull driver’s style is “unique” among his F1 peers.
“What’s clear is that Max’s racing style is quite unique around the grid,” Gasly said.
“When you go wheel-to-wheel to him, the outcome is quite often slightly different than what you face with other guys.
“Whether it’s fair or not, that is another conversation, but it’s guaranteed hard racing, and the outcome seems unlikely to end up as an overtake and [it] can be an incident or a penalty.”
Following a debate around racing guidelines, the 20 F1 drivers and the FIA met to discuss the topic in Mexico.
The outcome of that discussion is that the guidelines will be rephrased at the season’s end.
