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Verstappen learnt a lot about himself in a high quality 2021 F1 season

  • Darshan Chokhani
    • Max Verstappen, F1

    JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA - DECEMBER 05: Max Verstappen of the Netherlands driving the (33) Red Bull Racing RB16B Honda and Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain driving the (44) Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team Mercedes W12 battle for track position at the restart during the F1 Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia at Jeddah Corniche Circuit on December 05, 2021 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. (Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images) // Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool // SI202112050269 // Usage for editorial use only //

    Max Verstappen agrees that he has learned more about himself during the course of 2021 F1 season which was of very high quality.

    With Red Bull stepping up to challenge Mercedes in 2021, it brought out their best guns – Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton – in a straight fight for the 2021 drivers’ title. It looked tasty from the onset as the two teams looked set for an epic battle.

    And it proved to be that eventually as throughout the year, it ebbed and flowed between the two. Verstappen was consistently in the Top 2 apart from the retirements and a couple of incidents, while Hamilton had some rough runs but looked good for a podium.

    Even though it ended on a sour note in Abu Dhabi in some ways, looking back at the whole year, it was a pretty solid fight between the two. Verstappen rightly pointed out that even a lock-up would proved crucial for either of the drivers’ title hopes.

    It was a new experience for him in a world championship fight against a veteran like Hamilton, one where he learned a lot too. “New experiences and again, I learned more about myself in a positive way, luckily, but luckily you keep on improving, that’s for sure,” said Verstappen, when about the season on the whole.

    “I think in general the quality has been very high, I think set by myself and Lewis of course. We have been pushing each other to the limit every single time. There have been quite some tough races, just physically also because you were just pushing like hard all the time.

    “There was no lap to rest and throughout the whole weekend – qualifying, race – it was so important to always try and be perfect which is very high in Formula 1 to be perfect because there is always some… a little tiny lock-up can make the difference between P1 and P2 and in the championship that we had, that was massive so the level of focus required was very high,” summed up Verstappen.

    Here’s Toto Wolff speaking on F1 not doing things to spice up

    Here’s Adrian Newey on Red Bull being slightly quicker than Mercedes

    Here’s Max Verstappen and Christian Horner reflecting on F1 2021

    Here’s Max Verstappen and Red Bull on their future