Former Ferrari race engineer Rob Smedley has described Max Verstappen as “the last word competitor”.
Discussing which driver he wish to function race engineer for throughout an look on the Excessive Efficiency podcast, Smedley selected the four-time champion due to his self-motivation and drive to “humiliate individuals” as the last word competitor.
“As a result of he is my kind of driver,” Smedley defined. “He is only a competitor.
“Like operating my very own enterprise now and whenever you interview individuals, ‘how a lot of a self-starter are you?’ You already know, what a ridiculous query. Who’s going to reply and say, ‘I am not a self-starter. I am unable to do something. You are going to have to inform me what to do like 24 hours a day.’
“Max is the epitome of any person who brings his personal motivation and drive each hour of day by day, proper? He’s so motivated. He’s a successful machine. He desires to win. He’s so aggressive, proper? So, there’s by no means any doubt about that, proper?
“After all, each driver desires to win, however how a lot can they carry it each hour of day by day? How a lot can they be motivated to be the perfect? Not solely to be the perfect, however to place an enormous hole between me and the following finest. As a result of that is what he desires to do.
“He finds that motivation from someplace, just like the hole to the following finest driver on the grid is not large enough. I would like it to be greater and I must outperform myself and I would like to pull the crew alongside. And that could be a highly effective drug when you might have any person in your facet like that, who’s so self-motivated.
Max Verstappen, Crimson Bull Racing
Photograph by: Andy Hone/ LAT Photographs by way of Getty Photographs
“You need to have all of the competency, and all the flexibility and all of that. That is form of a given, you are a Method 1 driver. However having that additional fringe of self-belief and with the ability to encourage your self and with the ability to encourage these individuals round you, that to me is what an entire driver is.”
After a difficult begin to the 2025 season, Verstappen returned from the summer time break with a late surge in efficiency, difficult each Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri for the drivers’ championship. He in the end completed in second behind Norris.
“He nonetheless desires it 110%. He desires it greater than anybody else. It is clear he desires it greater than anyone else. As a lot because it’ll in all probability be a ache for the opposite 19 to listen to this, that is why he is so profitable as a result of he will get up each morning and he brings it.
“And he’s motivated. He is the traditional driver that you just give him an inch, and he’ll take much more from you. And what does that do to all his different opponents? That places them even additional again. As a result of he simply retains going and going and going. I am positive most of them are him considering, ‘Come on, Max. Simply have a time off. Simply someday. Please simply have a weekend off so like we are able to all like do that.’
“However he does not as a result of it isn’t sufficient to beat individuals. It is virtually to the purpose the place he desires to humiliate individuals. And I do not imply that in a adverse method. I do not imply that in a nasty method, however that is what goes by means of his thoughts. He’s the last word competitor.”
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