Max Verstappen, Formula 1 world champion, always trusted the Red Bull’s capacity to dethrone Mercedes of the world championship title. But he conceded to learning “a lot of patience” during early stages of his career with the team.
Verstappen rose as star in F1, when he took his first victory at Spanish Grand Prix in 2016 as an 18-year-old. However, Mercedes dominated era limited his success trajectory with the Red Bull.
In 2017, regulations revamp could not dethrone Mercedes. However, Ferrari continuously remained a challenge to its dominance. While Red Bull engine deal with Renault and later with Honda could not pay off.
Verstappen raw talent helped him with winning now and then. Later in 2019, at Hungarian Grand Prix Honda deal paid off with a maiden pole for the Dutch. Currently, he own 22 pole positions to his name.
Finally, in 2021 Red Bull matched Mercedes while dethroning completely in 2022 after ground effect regulations. He is currently leading the champion, probably onto his third consecutive championship title.
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Verstappen, while looking at his unsuccessful year, believes that it has taught him patience. He claims of having no doubts on Red Bull capacity to win.
He replied to question about his doubts on Red Bull. “Not doubts, but you have to be patient.
“I think I learned a lot of patience over the years. But I always believed in the project because of how I saw people working, and how motivated they were to really get back on top.
“You cannot force it and just say, you know, we were the third best team at some point and say we need to win now. It’s a process and then you get a few people in maybe different positions, you get a good group together.
Verstappen’s feeling turned more positive when Honda on-boarded with its newer engines.
“At some point, it just clicked from one to the other year, you really made a jump forward,” he added.
“Of course, afterwards it is easy to say: ‘Yeah, I saw it coming, blah, blah.’ You don’t know, but I did trust the process we were in because I did feel that we were heading into something.
“We had a few years with engine deals falling apart and then it was just a bit of a struggle. Sometimes we had quite a decent package, but then lacked a bit of top speed. And that made it all very hard to really show the true potential.
“And then when Honda came along, again it was a bit of work in progress. But then after a year, I think we already became very competitive, and it was just great to see.”
