Can Max Verstappen reach 7 F1 titles?

Can Max Verstappen reach 7 F1 titles?

Max Verstappen won his fourth drivers’ title in F1 and now has his sights set on the seven championships won by Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher. Can you reach them?


Max Verstappen He must already be considered one of the greats, among the pilots in the history of the Formula 1 and after winning four world championships, the question immediately arises, can they equal the seven titles they won? Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton And what represent the maximum number of crowns in the most important category of motorsports?

Verstappen has the talent, the skills, the hands, the mentality, the composure, the natural speed and the power to intimidate his rivals to win not only three titles, but even more, but F1 is a team sport and the Dutchman The 27-year-old depends on being in the team that has a car with which he can compete, it does not necessarily have to be the fastest, as he already demonstrated in 2024.

‘Mad Max’ has won four consecutive titles from 2021 to 2024, all with Red Bullbut each one in different circumstances, which makes it more meritorious.

“I think Max is the best driver in the world today and one of the greats,” he said. Christian HornerRed Bull’s main team, once in the Las Vegas Grand PrixVerstappen secured the 2024 F1 title.

“We are still going to see much more of him, but this sport is man and machine, he has everything, but we need to give him the machinery to win much more,” he added.

Red Bull’s advisor, a controversial but influential and direct figure, Helmut Marko believes, like Horner, that Max has the talent, but it also depends on him continuing to have fun in F1 and wanting to continue in the competition.

“It will probably depend on how long Max wants to stay here,” Marko said when asked if he could win more titles. “And it depends, I think, how long I enjoy it. He is doing it and with us when we can improvise and give him a winning car. “We learned our lessons this year and we know what to do next year.”

What Marko says is not an unfounded assumption. Max Verstappen himself has said that he does not see himself as a Formula 1 driver until he is 40 like Hamilton or Fernando Alonso and that perhaps his retirement is closer than one might expect.

The challenge of the 7 championships

Now, Max Verstappen is tied for four drivers’ world championships with the historic Alain Prost and Sebastian Vettel and he has the teacher ahead of him Juan Manuel Fangiowho won five titles, as well as Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton, who hold the maximum mark of seven each.

In the case of Hamilton, he is still active and next year he will race for Ferrariof course, with the goal of reaching the eighth championship.

Now, numbers are very important, but sometimes it’s more relevant when you win, who you beat, and how you win those championships.

Verstappen won his first title in 2021 in a fierce battle with Hamilton, where Red Bull and Mercedes were evenly matched. Either of the two could have been champion and everything was decided in the last lap of the last Grand Prix of the year in Abu Dhabi, not without controversy included and, still, bitter claims from Lewis, Mercedes and their followers of a “robbery”.

In reality there was no such robbery, it was a power-to-power duel all year and the circumstances of the last GP were typical of a novel, by Ian Fleming for Verstappen and by Stephen King for Hamilton. One dressed as a hero, while for the other it was a nightmare within a horror story.

The decision by F1 race director at the time, Michael Masi, to ensure that the title was decided under a green flag and under Safety Car, in addition to the regulations allowing him to decide how many lapped cars could overtake, was seen, by the losers. , like a trick, but in reality it was the race circumstances and the decisions of the Mercedes team itself that determined the course of the race.

Hamilton arrived with very worn tires, after he could not enter the pits on two occasions or they decided not to do so so that he would not lose the lead, but they did not expect that Nicholas Latifi would cause the SC to enter a few laps from the end.

That epic battle, one of the endings to one of F1’s most exciting seasons, gives the winner and second place a special stature, but for some, it was a “blemish” on Verstappen’s record.

Then, in 2022 and 2023, especially in that last year, Verstappen had the cars RB18 and RB19 who proved to have no rival in F1. He won 15 and 19 races, respectively, and, of course, the discourse of his detractors is that he only won because of the car, as if the machine drove itself.

In 2024, Verstappen was crowned under circumstances that elevate him even more, because the RB20 was a superior car to the other nine on the grid, only during the first five Grands Prix of the year, then it was Verstappen’s enormous hands that managed to keep them at the front, when the car he was driving was not only the fastest, but was often third or even fourth in performance, after the great growth of McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes.

Infighting at Red Bull didn’t help Verstappen either, but he found a way to win four more Grands Prix of the 17 in which McLaren’s Lando Norris It was very superior.

The Englishman Norris did not rise to the occasion. He mentally collapsed under Verstappen’s intimidation.

Winning with the best car is what is expected of a good driver, but winning with a competitive but inferior car makes you great and a legend.

Max Verstappen, at 27 years old, can perfectly add to his statistics that now have him with 62 wins, 40 pole positions and four world titles, but a lot of it will depend on the decisions he made regarding the direction of his career.

Continue with Red Bull or look for the best possible car, that will be the dilemma. He currently has a contract until 2027 with those based in Milton Keynes, but it would be enough for Verstappen to decide that the team can no longer provide him with a tool good enough to fight for the title and for him to put his finger on the driver market to that opportunities would open up for him.

The cases of Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel should be your example, since they were drivers with special talent, who were champions and who later did not make the best decisions and could not add more championships.

Whether Verstappen will win seven or more F1 drivers’ world championships remains to be seen, many things have to come together, but what no one can take away from him is a place among the legends of this sport.