OST, somewhere, in the afterburn of a wild F1 season, is the notion that the sport had somehow become ‘easy’. The cars lacked challenge, they said; Max Verstappen shouldn’t have been able to race so brilliantly, so young, and win a grand prix so soon.
They overlooked the likelihood that Verstappen’s talent is a once-in-a-generation phenomenon and that for every Max who found racing an F1 car as natural as walking, there were other young guns, such as Daniil Kvyat, Kevin Magnussen and Pascal Wehrlein, who’d found it much harder to make their mark.
They also spoke too soon. They spoke before they’d witnessed one of the sport’s toughest competitors, Nico Rosberg, being put through the mangle in pursuit of a world title. They hadn’t seen his pale, drawn face…
