What can stop Verstappen winning fifth straight title?

It is rare that we learn fresh pieces of detail about drivers on the Formula One grid.

- KIERAN JACKSON

Particularly the leading protagonists –the big guns – such is their exclusive status and Superman-esque powers behind the wheel. But as the clock struck midnight in Sin City on Sunday, the man in Max Verstappen’s ear spoke with a distinct clarity of thought when asked about his driver’s brilliant charge to a fourth F1 crown.

What makes the Dutchman, a four-time world champion at 27, unique? “What you hear on the broadcast is not necessarily Max, it’s just his adrenaline at the time,” said Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase in a rare television interview after the Las Vegas Grand Prix. “As much as he’s got bravado, he will absorb every piece of information. That’s his real strength.”

From a previous group of a dozen, in securing his fourth title Verstappen joins a club altogether more exclusive. Only five other drivers have won at least four F1 world championships: Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton (seven), Juan Manuel Fangio (five) and Alain Prost and Sebastian Vettel (four).

Love him or loathe him, F1’s ultimate Marmite figure is now indisputably among the all-time greats.

Yet this year tested the indomitable Verstappen in more ways than one. Off-track, the soap opera maelstrom which engulfed Red Bull at the start of the season saw his dad Jos and boss Christian Horner in a highly-publicised dispute. On-track, Red Bull have not had the quickest car since race six and, for a period, were clearly the fourth-quickest team on the grid.

Yet Verstappen has come through all of it – speculation over his future at Red Bull, squabbles in the cockpit with closest challenger and friend Lando Norris and even the FIA looking to quash his forthright, sometimes foul-mouthed, language – to seal the title with two races left.