Red Bull’s updated RB16B was the superior car, and it looked like a title-winner from the get-go in Max’s hugely capable hands. The work that Honda had done on their RA621H engine was also significant.
It was already clear that the new rules, especially the reduction of the floorplan, had hurt Mercedes much more than it had Red Bull, perhaps because they seemed to favour high-rake cars. We saw that right from the season opener in Bahrain. READ MORE: Brilliant Verstappen claims maiden title after victory in Abu Dhabi season finale following late Safety Car drama But sometimes it painted him into a corner. His relentless will to win, to fight at all times, saw that message repeated continuously. But Lewis was the king and thus the one on whom the young pretender’s attention was most focused. Lewis, of course, had long realised this, as had the likes of former Red Bull team mate Daniel Ricciardo, Kimi Raikkonen, Valtteri Bottas and Charles Leclerc. Which is just as well, because although he had the best car in the field for most of the season, his attacking style at times ensured that taking his first World Championship, and stealing the crown away from such a seasoned warrior as Lewis Hamilton, wasn't as straightforward as it could have been.Īll season he seemed to spend his time laying down markers to the reigning champion, relaying time and again the same message: “I’m not going to be easy.” The Grand Prix became firmly established as the biggest race in Europe, and in 1908 the US Grand Prize (as it was then called) was held on a 17-mile course on roads around the Island of Hope district of Savannah, Georgia.Max Verstappen loves a fight. The first ever Grand Prix, for which the ‘Big Prize’ was 45,000 French francs (equal to 28 lb of gold) was held over two days on June 26-27, 1906 on a 64-mile course on closed roads around the historic city of Le Mans. From now on, closed loops of roads – circuits – would become the norm. This aspect was to prove decisive in the evolution of racing, because in 1903, city-to-city events were outlawed due to unmanageable public safety concerns.
The Gordon Bennett Cup raced on a route that started and ended at the same place, further building excitement and making it easier for the press to capture the stories and photographs that they needed to fill their pages. It all started when American newspaper baron, James Gordon Bennett, seized upon the excitement that new city-to-city racing fostered and through his newspapers, the New York Herald and the International Herald Tribune, and established the Gordon Bennett Cup in 1900 as a new European event.
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