Max Verstappen sealed his place on Sunday amongst the all-time Formula One greats by becoming a 3-time World Champion as a relatively new face, McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, emerged from the field.
Since the opening race of the season in Bahrain, it has been inevitable that Max Verstappen would win his 3rd Formula One driver’s world title. The reasons were clear: the dominance of the Red Bull car and Verstappen’s superior driving ability.
With three World Titles and 49 race wins at the tender age of 26 and Red Bull’s dominance over the rest of the Formula One field, there seems to be no barrier to what Verstappen may go on to achieve. The only question remaining is whether he can go on to achieve all-time records regarding the number of race wins and World Championships won.
But while most of Sunday’s headlines belonged to Verstappen, another name–Oscar Piastri–came to the fore. Piastri, who is in his rookie season, beat Verstappen in Saturday’s sprint race to achieve his first Formula One career victory and then achieved a career-best Grand Prix second-place finish in Sunday’s main race.
For the past two seasons, it has been widely thought that if Verstappen would be challenged, the challenger would most likely be Charles Leclerc at Ferrari, George Russell at Mercedes, or, providing he had a race-winning car at his disposal, Piastri’s McLaren team-mate Lando Norris. However, since Piastri joined McLaren at the start of this season and id-season upgrades were made to his McLaren car, Piastri has had outstanding performances. The result? Many pundits have added Piastri’s name to the challenger list.
It’s an unlikely story because Piastri and Verstappen have followed contrasting paths in Formula One success. As the son of a former driver, Verstappen seemed destined for Formula One from a young age. He was fast-tracked into the sport, becoming the youngest-ever driver at the time at the age of 17 when he made his Formula One debut for Torro Rosso in 2015–and without first competing in any of the usual junior racing categories, such as Formula 3 or Formula 2. Piastri, on the other hand, won both the Formula 3 and Formula 2 titles in his first year in each category. Yet, Piastri still had to wait another year before earning a full-time race seat in Formula One and didn’t make his F1 racing debut until he was 22.
Piastri and Verstappen (photo courtesy The SportsRush)
Verstappen and Piastri seem to be two completely different characters, too. With his brash driving style and approach to races, Verstappen is no stranger to mistakes and controversies. For example, in 2018, he crashed out of qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix, gifting the pole position and race win to team-mate Daniel Ricciardo. Later, during his 2021 title fight with Lewis Hamilton, the pair collided, and Verstappen crashed out of the Italian Grand Prix. However, it must be said that since winning that first world title in 2021, there seems to have been a weight lifted from Verstappen, and he is a much more calm and composed driver today.
Piastri couldn’t be more different from how Verstappen was in his early days of Formula One. The young Australian is calm and composed, always striving for self-improvement. Those traits were evident in the recent Japanese Grand Prix, which brought him his first career podium. Even though he achieved success that day, Piastri was still self-critical about his performance.
While Verstappen and Piastri have followed different paths to Formula One and have contrasting personalities, they share outstanding racing abilities, including the relentless desire to be the best. It could mean that Formula One fans may be treated to many head-to-head battles in the years to come.
