After every Formula 1 race, driver Jeroen Bleekemolen shares his observations in an exclusive column for Formule1.nl. Who or what stood out to him, what went well, and what needs to change? This time, after the Japanese Grand Prix: why McLaren’s frustrations will increase over the flawless Max Verstappen.
Sometimes, you can’t fit everything into a column, but I’m going to try anyway. Because there’s so much to say about, indeed, Max Verstappen. What he showed again this weekend…incredible. And why that’s so frustrating for the competition, I’ll explain.
Imagine being McLaren. You have Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri as drivers, two enormous talents. And mark my words: these guys will definitely become world champions one day. Just look at Piastri, how much he can still grow. So, in any case: they are certainly not bunglers. But you see it in Japan, they do make a mistake every now and then. And you can’t get away with that, not even if you have the best car.
And why can’t you get away with it? Because as McLaren, you have the misfortune of having to race against Max Verstappen. That’s so annoying for McLaren: Max is just so good. And: he makes no mistakes. You could see that again this weekend.
In the qualification, in the race; it was perfect. Especially the lap with which he took pole, that’s really unprecedented. Precisely because that car doesn’t go. Because that’s the case, the problems are really not over. On the contrary: in my opinion, the Red Bull is still the fourth car on the field.
No Victory in Bahrain
That’s why I’m already saying that Max won’t win in Bahrain. That’s almost impossible, because it’s warmer there than in Japan and the tyre degradation will also be greater. All of this is in favour of McLaren, the team with still the best car. So, it will be a ‘simple’ victory for Norris or Piastri. Unless something unusual happens, of course.
And yes, it was deemed impossible in Japan by many beforehand. But the fact that it was colder than expected in the race helped. But what really made the difference this weekend is the combination of Max’s qualities on one hand and the good cooperation with his engineer GP and the performance engineer on the other. Because Max can indicate so well where the RB21 falls short, for example in turn 4, 5 and 6 this or that. They then really pick up on this and do something with it.
In this way, you can steer the car in a certain direction together, improve something, even though it’s still not the best car on the field. But it is in the hands of the very best driver. And he, as Max proves, still makes the difference. Annoying for McLaren, great for us.
