The comparison Sainz / Verstappen as both being rookies doesn't paint the whole picture. They were totally different kind of rookies. Sainz was quite a bit older and had 5 years of formula racing behind him. Verstappen did 1 year F3 then straight into F1. That fact alone is incredible.

Best description I heard about whether or not car is designed for Max is that the car is designed to go fast and Max has been best at handling it.

Wait? Sergio has only been in f1 4 years longer than Max. I had to check, he's correct. I thought Sergio had been in so much longer than that. Damn I'm getting old, times going so quick 2016 doesn't feel long ago at all.

Verstappen's real teammate is the Red Bull itself.

That Albon interview was fantastic. When I watched it I couldn't stop thinking "wow, this guy is really introspective and intelligent and just seems like a really likeable nice guy" To paraphrase him: -They don't make the car for Max, they just make it as theoretically fast as they can make it, and expect the drivers to be professionals who can drive it in a way that will bring that pace out of it. -Max is *really* good at getting that pace out of it, but then he gives fantastic feedback and finds faster setups than his teammates can. -The setups tend to be closer and closer to the edge, and become faster but incredibly difficult to drive. -The teammates watch Max's data and try to find the speed that he does but the car is just too close to the edge and they can't handle it the way he does. Basically, he can get a car in a narrow setup groove and keep it there better than anyone else, and they just can't match him as the season goes on and the optimal setup gets narrower and narrower. I didn't recognize it until he said it and now I can't unsee the effect. I think it says a lot that the best drivers in the world can't match his technique even with all the millisecond-by-millisecond data.

Mathematically speaking oversteer is faster than understeer but it's harder to drive a car that steers too much than a car that steers less. Max Verstappen is a special breed that has the ability to control a rwd 1000hp 800kg car with a lot of oversteer. And another really important bit, in my opinion is that even when he loses control, he somehow always minimizes the damage (for example, the way he does 360 spins and carries on unphased)

What Alex Albon did NOT Fully Explain, which he KNEW about was that the 2020 Car had HUGE Issues with Balance & Max Drove around those Issues…Alex could Not! The Car was NOT supposed to be how bad Alex Experienced it, but Red Bull only discovered that late in that very shortened 2020 Season…

Alex's forthright testimony in that interview explains everything. Max has the ability to adapt to the car and be quick and like Lando said, trying to keep up to him is beyond everyone right now.

He just reminds me of Marc Marquez in MotoGP. Maybe his teammates can't win because, he's just that good!

The car is not completely built around Verstappen. Even before the team really became established around Verstappen, Adrian Newey already mentioned in his book (released in 2017) that he felt that oversteery cars are naturally faster and therefore designs them to be that way. Then it's just a coincidence that Verstappen also prefers this type of balance.

Max is simply the best at driving the Red Bull at it's limit without overstepping. He also has an insane reaction time and control over the car whenever he pushes it just a bit too far.

You have to be able to adapt to any car. Max practices more and better than any other driver. He's obsessed with driving, no distractions.

Albon apparently never drove a f1 car before 2019, not even in practice. And just got half a season in Torro Rosso. For comparison Max got 1.3 season in Torro Rosso before moving to RB, same for Gasly. The second most important point is that RB16 was a DEFECTIVE car which Max with his experience and talent managed to excel in but with great difficulty. Whereas Albon didn't have that experience to excel in that DEFECTIVE car even though he was supremely talented. Don't judge a baby Albon on his inability to drive a DEFECTIVE car. Because criteria should be to excel in good cars. Albon helped develop RB16b BTW.

People also forget besides being extremely young, Max only had one year of Single seater experience.. Being plucked out European Formula 3 straight into F1,, Max first year of F1 should have realistically been 2017

I think it is not just that the sharp front end of the car suits Max, I think it has more to do with the adaptability of Max. For instance in Sim racing he loves driving GT cars which, if I'm not mistaken, have quite a bit of understeer. Still he mastered it and is beating seasoned simracers with them.

To underscore how extremely well Verstappen adapts to the characteristics of a car, search online for a BBC article "Most need 150km to get used to F1, Verstappen needed a lap" In that interview former Alpha Tauri team principal Franz Tost said the following: _"During his first test I was really impressed how fast he adapted to the speed and brakes… normally drivers need 100-150km to get used to the enormous power which an F1 car has under accelerating and under braking. But from the first lap onwards he was familiar with everything."_

Verstappen had only 1 short season in a racecar before entering in F1. Within 1 year from karting to F1...

I think it has a lot to do with Newey. When you look for the Beyond the grid episode with J.P. Montoya where he talks about the difference back in the day between Williams and McLaren (made by Newey). His feedback on that car is the same as Albons. Williams was much easier to drive and he had a lot of confidence even on the absolute limit of the car. In McLare he was not so confident because the car was really twitchy but in the end it was faster. Also one thing which is really important when you compare Max's rookie season to Hamilton, Vettel or MSC - they had basically unlimited real on track testing. Max didn't.

Its just RB making the fastest car they can and Max can simply adapt much better then most drivers

Max was born to race. He was molded into a driving genius by his parents. It's hard to beat someone who has been surounded by and participated in racing his entire life, and devoted his entire life to it. Max is a machine.

I've said it before and I will say it again. Max Verstappen is _EXACTLY_ the driver what Red Bull had wanted. They want a pointy car, and Max Verstappen excels at controlling pointy cars. They don't build the car around him; he's just at the perfect place at the perfect time.

Max Verstappen is very talented, I think he would've done very well in any team.

The best part of Alex’s interview was how he described that Max’s style is like constantly increasing the mouse sensitivity in a game while Alex was still getting use to a lower setting

In a class on control systems at grad school, I remember my professor saying that the fastest maneuvering vehicle is an inherently unstable one. The example he mentioned was the F-22 with its optimization controls (Great MIT video on this topic: m.ukposts.info/have/v-deo/pmBnbJyco2OImn0.html) The control inputs to get the optimal result is often very non-intuitive. For the F-22, the control surfaces (think wing flaps) will do really strange motions to move the plane in the intended direction. It seems the current Red Bull car is also inherently unstable and Verstappen has the mental circuitry to control it.

You can combine this Albon interview with one by Newey from a few years back. He essentially said that Max “spoiled” then - he was hiding a lot of defects in the car design that were making it really hard to drive, because he can simply drive anything. They were making the car to go as fast as possible, but it was getting really hard to drive. So, it combines well with Alex’s take that “the car is what it is”

Max is the golden cow, he fliped the coin around for redbull, and the cars are made to ensure they always win the races, max is the best bet, and making the car around him gives better chances to win during the season. He was born, and raised during his whole life to drive, he was a life-long investment, and everyone on redbull is getting the fruits of that bet now. Redbull requires a teammate to be with max, but he is not expected to be better, nor win more, he just needs to be there. being on redbull is being overshadowed by max.

Albon likes a pointy car as well but compared to Max he said it was like he was "driving a bus".

Let me say these... I don't actually do much comments on social platform but I am a formula 1 fan... Max V IMO is like a season dog or horse trainer that NO matter how stubborn or how viscious or how wild the horse/Dog is... He can tame it in short period of time..like a professional dancer.. He can dance any kind of music.. So is with the F1 car he adjust and tamed the car in such a short period of time.. Pure Talent it is

Max Verstappen's dominance over his team mates reminds me of Michael Schumacher in the early part of his F1 career. Take 1994 for example: while Schumacher had a lowest finish of second in the races he finished, JJ Lehto, Jos Verstappen and Johnny Herbert couldn't amass more than 11 points combined between them. The most telling stats are from the two races Schumacher was banned in 1994. In Monza and Estoril, without their star driver, Benetton barely reached the top 10 in qualifying for both (Jos Verstappen qualified 10th for both and Lehto struggled badly in what would have been Schumacher's car by qualifying 20th and 14th respectively. In the races, Verstappen had a DNF in Monza due to accident damage and finished 5th in Estoril, while Lehto finished 9th at Monza and spun into retirement at Estoril)

It’s kind of funny that both Sainz and Albon are now possible 2025 teammates for Max again.

Always love the way you look in to things out of your own experience and knowledge and really analyse the actual fine details. A lot of channels and video's are made by people without the experience and just simplify everything. And you always tell and explain stuff so we can actually learn and understand it. Great video as always. Thanks mate!

Max knows one thing.....racing. Sure you could say that for any other driver, but as a kid and even now, Max's whole daily life revolves around racing.

It is a great time to be a Red Bull Racing fan and a Max fan!

Max's style seems like an adrenaline addict who has an incredible feel for a car

as a casual f1 fan I only recently started to play f1 games with traction control off, and I can relate to what Alex said so much. I'm so hesitant on the throttle and pray the rear doesn't kick out

Great review thanks, we are all blessed to be living history and witness one of F1 greatest drivers.

Driver61 already crediting video clips to Visa CashApp RB instead of AlphaTauri or Toro Rosso as he says the team name "Toro Rosso" is peak F1 Sponsorship moment😂😂

Newey said he builds the fastest car possible and Max gets 110% out of it. If you look at his sim racing, he can win in a GT3 Ferrari, or a Mercedes. He's fast in anything because he just adapts to the car better than anyone.

Alex in the RB was on his way to podiums at race end twice and Hamilton pushed him off the track twice - and out of F1.

The only times teammates were close to Verstappen were when he was a teenager. Once he got to his 20's he blew away all the teammates.

Albon compared how the car feels to how a computer game would feel if you turned the mouse sensitivity all the way to the max. I thought that was a brilliant analogy.

To expand on what Albon said: The car at the start of the year is not designed for Max. Throughout the year the development of the car will be steered towards the preference of the drivers. However, when one driver is significantly faster than the other, the team will pay more attention to the driver who's faster. Since this has always been Max (at least since 2019), they will listen more to his wishes than his teammate's.

Thank you for this data packed video 👍🏽

Max is very adaptable and races different disciplines on the sim during the f1 downtime. Once in a generation talent

The title can be answered easily, max is a great driver with crazy consistency that no one else has been able to keep up with

What makes Max an impressive talent is his adaptability. The fact that all he does is race even on his off time is kind of a testament to his dedication to the sport. Love him or hate him his talent is undeniable and yet his haters will still cry saying “it’s all the car” lol. Still what I wouldn’t give to see a rookie Max vs rookie Lewis, I think that would be a season to watch!

Good presentation. Thanks for sharing.

Just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate these technique breakdown videos. I’m a huge F1 fan and also love sim racing, so this type of stuff is the best of both worlds for me!

So, what I'm hearing is that Max has a natural penchant for driving Newey cars. And since he's most successful out of the gate, the development direction trends more towards his preferences.

I had heard that another thing w/ max was that he does a lot of his own testing vs having a secondary driver do the homework.

Could you do a video on albon‘s driving style? How he is getting out so much out of the Williams, his tire management and his great defending against way quicker cars

Best video of Max is from team red line. It over an hour long but goes in very detail about Max his driving.

Can’t really measure, atmosphere has a lot of impact. If the vibe is always Team Max, it will break you and wear you down. Then again when max joined Riccardo was already well established and settled after beating Vettel.

Can you do a vid on how to go from go karting to higher ranks of racing like f3 and 4

These statistics say one thing which I’m not surprised about. He’s only had one teammate, who was actually close to him in performance: Carlos Sainz They will never pair Carlos with Max. The last thing Red Bull needs is a Driver war. Carlos is a lead driver, not a second driver.

This reminds me of a driver from decades back - Ronnie Petersen - in the days when instrumentation was less sophisticated. He was very quick, until his fatal crash, but a horrible car development driver. After a couple of laps, he'd completely adapted to the car and couldn't say how it was handling.

max is like a curse for the 2nd driver LOL

Neat video mate!

I think Max can communicate the car setup in a more concrete en detailed way. He has a lot of technical knowledge from the time with Jos building their own carts. It would be interested how his relation is with Adrian en the others engineers in respect to the car setup and improvements.

What Alex basically said was ‘the designers and engineers build a car for the theoretical maximum fastest lap.. Ver is just a driver that can drive a car that is built that way regardless of how well it drives’

Not really a Max fan, but as F1 fan his I do admire his magnificent skills and total determination. He is one of the greatest ever. And, after all, F1 is a team sport. RBR does what RBR must do to win. Including sacrificing any possibility for the second driver to really shine. It is not pretty, maybe not even fair. But it is business. The only thing that matters when a team without any true racing pedigree tries to become legendary is a long streak of drivers’ championships.

I think what separates Max from everyone else, is he elevates his team around him to such a degree that they will rallyh behind him whatever it takes. Max gives himself credit for his performance, but he always acknowledges that he's able to race the way he is because he can rely on the shoulders of brilliant engineers that love seeing him succeed. True teamwork. Many teams have still to figure out how to forge a core team that can conquer any challenge.

Great to see that you accept VISA this time around in the competition! I was quite sad last time that I couldn't enter because only MasterCard was allowed.

Max is so talented yet the youngest to join F1, which means he's the YOUNGEST driver with MOST EXPERIENCE. And a team that works so well with him. The only thing can take him out is probably a bad engine. Also, I think he's so determined, because he suffer so much for his F1 dreams. He's the only one who stay with his dad when the rest of the family left them. He knows what it costs to be at the top.

Max is an exceptional driver. The rest is also good but max is great and all round very strong.

Good driver and a car tailor made for his style gets the consistency win rate.

Between 2014 and 2020 Lewis and Mercedes could dominate due to their far superior engine. Now we are in the ground effect era. And downforce is more important now. Adrian Newey expertise area. Making Verstappens car the best. My point is F1 is a sport where the best driver and the best car go hand in hand. In 2026 their will be new engine rules again. Who will get the best start then IDK, but I hope in the future we can have a combination of making your own car, and tighter fights for top spot. 👍

Makes Saintz look really good too

I mean the answer to how is regardless of how you feel about him he's one of the best to ever drive a Formula 1 car. I mean it really is that simple😂

the actual difference between Max and the others, is his immaculate tire management, the matching setup and placement on the track to get the best out of the tires is what makes the most difference and over the racelenght makes him undefeatable for most others, the tire management is his actual talent.

4:00 omg amazing music choice. LA Dreams and selorekt are really putting out incredible music

I am really curious to see Daniel back on the Red Bull cause he adapted so quickly to the car on the tests. I think he is confortable with the kind of car red bull has. So, it would be interesting to see if he can keep up with Max.

basically vs Ricciardo and Sainz he was undercooked...after he gained some experience he became the monster he is today...probably will go down as the GOAT.

Daniel of 2018 and verstappen now will be the perfect match for the title just waiting for Daniel to come back or Perez

Immediately entered for the drivers experience this morning. Now it's time to only drive Paul Ricard in the sim until the announcement, just in case. Best of luck to everyone else who has entered!!

The other issue that all the drivers that have driven with Max also have to face with is the reality you have to face driving alongside him. There's already a clear trend that as he progresses in F1, the faster he gets. And all it takes for any driver to go into a downward spiral is for some major event or turning point in their career such as a crash or Max just flying past them. In Checo's case, it could be the time how he got passed in Miami and the whole thing was over in a moment. Then later on we'd learn that Max was upset after Baku 2023 and swore that he won't be beaten by Checo again. He then followed through with that for the rest of the season even in Singapore where he still finished ahead of Checo despite not winning the race. That kind of mentality to not want to loose to your teammate again, and then seeing that conviction actually become fact, is something that every would-be Red Bull driver would have already in their minds the moment they think of joining Max in that team. Once Max has a goal in mind, he basically throws everything he can to make sure he reaches and then flies miles past that goal, and there's little to no stopping him. It's the F1 driver mentality dialled up to 11.

It's not just his teammates It's the entire pack that can't win ...

please make the contest to drive the f1 car available for Canada as well!😢

I’d love to see a vid about the motorcycles or the stories behind Liberty Walk and Rocket Bunny

Don't have kids yet Verstappen. I believe Vettel's fall in pace really started when he became a father. I really think that made a massive impact on his willingness to push. The change in regulations also happened around that time but Vettel was a monster in his early years too.

Both Albon and Gasly deserved more time.

I wish you had not played the music in the background, stil good vid

we saw him in action @ genk a lot back in the day, we already knew then. This guy is going to win a lot of world championships.

Ill save you some time: Hes just too good.

According to some fanboys of other Drivers, Red Bull should jeopardize the maximum speed potential of the car, so Max's Teammates don't get wrecked.

To bad I dont have a card to pay for the F1 lotery. It is not that common to have a it where I live. Could there be a extra option to use Ideal?

Tbh Sainz is a bad comparison as it was Max's first year in F1, his best teammates were Ricciardo and Perez and yet still Danny is a bad comparison cause Max is a very different driver now then he was then

I will never forget it was Hamilton who demoralized Alex.

I definitely second the recommendation of the Albon interview

Man I wish the raffle was spread to Canada! It’s something I’ve dreamt to do since birth. My car was recently stolen so I feel as separated from racing as I’ve ever felt.

To beat the best, you'd have to be better. Which is impossible if he's really the best. Which Verstappen is. The best that ever did it. It really is that simple.

10:27 That is a strange Mclaren.

Sometimes I drive my semi truck and wonder how long it would take me to do a lap around silverstone. Unloaded of course 🤪

Pure talent. That's it. Chase closed. Thanks for the support for doing this 1 min research.

Shows you how good Sainz is

Definitely something to be said that the stronger your teammate is, the less you’ll look like a God. One of the best drivers no doubt but I don’t read too much into beating Perez and Gasly in a car that they hate

I think we will see Alex back at RB in 2025, and he will be much much better than his rookie year. He did great considering his experience and who he was up against.

The second seat became inversely proportional to VER time and influence in the team.. pointy car and highly agile which is heaven to VER and nightmare to second

This doesn't tell the whole story. For example, RB knew the only person who could beat Max in that car this year was Checo. Therefore, they ordered Checo not to qualify well so he could start towards the back knowing the car was so fast that he'd likely still get a podium in the race. They used team orders to give Max more opportunities to win. This is why Lewis made the comment that he didn't like what RB was doing to Checo's career.

And he can’t be beat on iracing, man is just a pure breed racer