Max Verstappen speaks on believing himself in 2024 F1 title fight despite not having the fastest car all-round after a dominant 2023 season.
It wasn’t easy for Red Bull’s Verstappen to secure his fourth F1 title in 2024. He started well but the car faltered at a time when McLaren picked up along with Ferrari. This hurt his chances and there were moments when it looked like Lando Norris may take the championship away.
The points buffer was enough in the end to allow Verstappen seal the championship in Las Vegas itself. The Dutchman was helped by the grand prix in Brazil, but he feels the grand prix in Austin helped him to set things right. There was still an outside fear of losing it, but he managed it well.
He had faith on Red Bull to turn things around and team boss Christian Horner had belief on Verstappen to deliver as well. The combination eventually helped them to take laurels on one side of the spectrum at least, if not retain both the championships which they hope to do in 2025.
Belief to win, four titles –
Verstappen: “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. 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. In general, I do think that since Austin, we have turned it around a little bit and we’re a bit more in that fight again.
“And yeah, all credit to the team for that. Of course, I know that it’s been quite a tough season for us overall, also the constructors, but at least we still won one championship. It [four-time champion] sounds very good. Yeah, something that when you grow up racing and you see all these stats of some legendary drivers and 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’. 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. But yeah, luckily we did that. But I think that was more like the first three championships. Now this year, we hit the ground running well, but then we had a lot of tough races.
“And that is something I’m very proud of, in those tough races where we were definitely not the fastest car, we kept it together as a team. We worked very hard back at the factory as well, remained calm, most of the times. 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. And all those things, of course, matter at the end of the day when you fight for a championship.”
Horner’s belief –
Verstappen: “I think so, too. I mean, last year, I had a dominant car, but I always felt that not everyone appreciated what we achieved as a team, winning 10 in a row. Of course, our car was dominant, but it wasn’t as dominant, I think, as people thought it was. That’s for sure my best season [2023].
“I will always look back at, because even in places where maybe we didn’t have the perfect set-up, we were still capable, because in the race, our car was always quite strong, to win races. But I’m also very proud of this season because for most of the season, I would say for 70% of the season, we didn’t have the fastest car, but actually we still extended our lead. So that is definitely something that I’m very proud of.”
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