Max Verstappen, the calm before the storm

After the first winter tests of the season, the trend to identify a favorite is quite clear. Like many fans, F1 experts are looking towards Max Verstappen as a title contender, especially after his team’s highly successful performance during the Bahrain tests. Commentator David Croft states on Sky Sports F1 that he hasn’t seen any issues for Red Bull during the early outings: “I’m not sure we saw any in the tests.”

David Croft still wants to be cautious. For this reason, he echoes the words of former British driver Martin Brundle to show that the season will be long with different racing conditions. Martin [Brundle] is right in saying that there have only been three days in hot conditions and that the season will be played in many different conditions, but when the car arrived on the track, everything seemed to be as expected. It seemed to be what he wanted.

Verstappen and Red Bull, the scarecrow of the season.

In addition to Red Bull’s team work, what impressed the Sky expert was Max Verstappen’s attitude, which displayed an Olympic calmness, particularly on the radio. The Max Verstappen team told me that he was extremely quiet on the radio, and apparently, it’s a very good thing. When Max doesn’t say much, it means he has nothing to blame himself for. He was in a good mindset. Their lap times were consistent, they were fast, and we didn’t see much wrong.

David Croft is not the only expert at Sky to consider the Dutchman as the favorite for the upcoming season. Karun Chandhok states that this is the first season he approaches with a clear favorite status. Last year, we had so many unknowns with the new regulations. He is now a double world champion. He drove superbly last year, with a new level of maturity and experience, and I believe he has taken the favorite status coming into this year. Chandhok adds that the Red Bull team, in general, will be very difficult to beat in my opinion.