Max Verstappen said his third consecutive drivers’ world title triumph, achieved in Saturday’s sprint race at the Qatar Grand Prix, was “the one I am most proud of — the best.”
The 26-year-old Dutchman, who was champion in 2021 and last year, finished second behind McLaren’s Oscar Piastri after his Red Bull teammate and only remaining title rival Sergio Perez crashed out of the race and the championship reckoning.
“This one is the best,” he said, “I think the first one was the most emotional, because that is when your dreams are fulfilled, but this is definitely my best year for consecutive wins and stuff like that, and the car itself has been probably in the best shape as well. So, for me, this is the one I am most proud of because of the consistency.”
Photo: AFP
Verstappen has won 13 of this year’s 16 Grands Prix, seizing the title with six races to go — a rare measure of supremacy not achieved since seven-time F1 champion Michael Schumacher won for Ferrari in 2002. He is the 11th driver overall to win three drivers’ titles and one of only five to win three in succession along with Juan-Manuel Fangio, Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton.
“It’s something, of course, that I never even really dreamt of doing,” he said. “It’s a very proud moment for myself, for my family, my close family. I think everyone within the team I’m working with to be able to experience all of this together ... it’s amazing.”
Verstappen said that his experience with Toro Rosso, with whom he made his F1 debut at the age of only 17 in 2016, and Red Bull had been important to his life and his development.
“I keep trying to improve, and of course I don’t necessarily think I’ve become a faster driver, but you have a lot more experience in the car, you grow as a driver and you grow also I think as a person in life.”
“I think all these kind of things, when I compare to my first season in Formula One, they help a lot in terms of just dealing with every kind of pressure situation throughout the weekend,” he said. “Everything that might be thrown at you in difficult conditions, for example. At the end, it’s all about trying to deliver every single weekend, which is, I think, very hard in F1.”
Typically, he said that he had no plans to allow any celebrations of his third title to interfere with his plan to win yesterday’s Qatar Grand Prix and claim his 14th win in 17 races this year.
He said he might celebrate with “a few sparkling waters.”
“It’s going to be the same tomorrow, and when I go to the next race, I’ll try to win again, because we have a great car,” he said. “I know that people around us are catching up maybe a little bit so it’s going to be tight, but my mindset is the same. It’s not like you suddenly go more risky, or get into any kind of battle... I am pretty happy with what I am doing at the moment, so I am going to carry on.”
He said that joining a list of great names from Formula One’s roll call of champions who have won three in a row was a great feeling.
“It’s fantastic,” he said. “A fantastic feeling. To be a three-time champion is incredible. It’s been an incredible year with a lot of great races and I am super proud of the job done by the team. It has been so enjoyable to be a part of that group of people.”
ANFIELD BLUES: Kylian Mbappe arrived at Anfield on a run of 21 goals in 17 games, but he managed just three attempts in the match, none of them hitting the target Kylian Mbappe has been nearly unstoppable this season, but he hit a roadblock in their UEFA Champions League match at Anfield on Tuesday. For the second year running, the Real Madrid forward had a night to forget at Merseyside as Liverpool won 1-0. Mbappe looked a shadow of the player who has been tearing defenses apart all season. “We were lacking that threat in the final third,” said Madrid coach Xabi Alonso, without naming Mbappe individually. The FIFA World Cup winner for France rarely looked capable of finding a breakthrough against a Liverpool team who have been so defensively fragile for much of the
LOCAL SUCCESS: In the doubles, Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia defeated Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in straight sets Elena Rybakina on Monday punched her ticket to the WTA Finals last four with an impressive 3-6, 6-1, 6-0 victory over second seed Iga Swiatek in round-robin play in Riyadh. After cruising past Amanda Anisimova in her opener on Saturday, Rybakina claimed her second win of the week to guarantee herself top spot in the Serena Williams Group. Anisimova on Monday rallied back from a set and a break down to triumph 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in her all-American battle with seventh seed Madison Keys, who has been eliminated from the competition. “Madi was playing so well, it was quite a battle out there,”
For almost 30 minutes, Vitomir Maricic did not take a breath. Face down in a pool, surrounded by anxious onlookers, the Croatian freediver fought spasming pain to redefine what doctors thought was possible. When he finally surfaced, he had smashed the previous Guinness World Record for the longest breath-hold underwater by nearly five minutes. However, even with the help of pure oxygen before the attempt, it had pushed him to the limit. “Everything was difficult, just overwhelming,” Maricic, 40, told reporters, reflecting on the record-breaking day on June 14. “When I dive, I completely disconnect from everything, as if I’m not even there.
An amateur soccer league organized by farmers, students and factory workers in rural China has unexpectedly drawn millions of fans and inspired big cities to form their own, raising hopes China can grow talent from the ground up and finally become a global force. The nation of 1.4 billion people has about 200 million soccer fans, more than any other country, but it has failed to build world-class teams, partly due to a top-down approach where clubs pick players from a very small pool of prescreened candidates. The professional game is marred by a history of fixed matches, corruption, and dismal performances,
RSS