Verstappen on the verge of greatness after second World Championship

Max Verstappen is already among F1 greats Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso… his dominant display at the Japanese Grand Prix in the treacherous rain was worthy of any double world champion

• Max Verstappen won his second World Championship with victory in Japan
• The Dutch driver was handed the win after Charles Leclerc was given penalty
• Verstappen has been tipped to be able to eclipse Michael Schumacher records

You can look at the broad sweep of his season and say his dominance was great. Or you can save yourself time and enjoy the opening moments of Sunday’s rain-whipped Japanese Grand Prix.

Both will detail Max Verstappen’s right to call himself the double world champion he now is, and will surely remain once the FIA have returned their verdict on any, probably small, budget-cap breaches on Monday.

The 25-year-old Dutchman started on pole, but lost a little wet ground to Charles Leclerc when the lights went out. With calculation, defiance and deftness, he then went round the outside of the first bend in treacherous conditions and came out of those opening corners ahead and in charge.

Max Verstappen won his second world championship in the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday

Yes, he was driving a very fine Red Bull drawn by the pencil of design guru Adrian Newey, but never could it have been directed more adroitly than by the gold-booted Verstappen.

Fantails of spray blinding, debris strewn hither and thither, an advertising hoarding stuck to Pierre Gasly’s car, a tractor ludicrously and dangerously on track, Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz retired, a safety car deployed, a red flag waved and a two-hour delay triggered, yet Verstappen’s daringly late braking move earned him an open road to a slice of history.

He was made to bide his time as the race was suspended. He did so calmly. Others on the eve of championship successes pretend to be as cool as Magnums but really are inferno-hot with concern. He didn’t seem like that and the comfort blanket of having four races remaining after Sunday’s helped his psyche, no doubt.

Verstappen was handed the championship after Charles Leclerc was given a late penalty 

There are a few theories about the quality of Verstappen’s driving this year. One is offered by Christian Horner, his team boss, who said: ‘Max has grown since last season. Winning his first title released a lot of pressure from his shoulders.’

But Max’s father, Jos, who drove with Michael Schumacher at Benetton, said nothing had changed his boy’s wattage, that his circumspection this campaign is not a departure from the norm: ‘He would have driven exactly the same last year, when he was right up against Lewis (Hamilton), but he had to do what was needed then. This time he had a great car and could drive the way he has.’

Overall, when all the season’s evidence is factored in, it has been a near-faultless exhibition after a few dismaying early gremlins, putting Verstappen up there with Schumacher, Fernando Alonso and Hamilton as the best drivers of this youngish century.

Hamilton in Melbourne on debut in 2007 will never be diminished. Alonso nearly everywhere, including in the Indy 500 he would have won on debut but for a Honda engine failure, will linger. Schumacher for multiple years nearly killed the sport with his superior results.

Verstappen has been backed to beat Michael Schumacher’s (right) record by Helmut Marko

Sebastian Vettel, despite holding four titles, does not quite enter the highest echelon of this reckoning. Robert Kubica, injured, missed out on his shot.

Verstappen is less a chaser of records than most of the above, at least for now. He told Sportsmail earlier in the season that he foresaw a day before he was half-ancient to retire from Formula One and pursue other forms of motor racing. But the nearer you get, the more you want to conquer the heights.

He is not a philosopher or a campaigner and never will be. He is an unvarnished practitioner of what he does best — racing.

Marko believes that if things goes his way then Verstappen can eclipse Schumacher’s records

It has served him well — 12 wins this season, one short of Schumacher and Vettel’s heights and six times the strike rate of his perfect-fit team-mate Perez, who drove so attackingly brilliantly on Sundat, as he did defensively a year ago in the controversy that was Abu Dhabi and Hamilton’s agonising defeat.

On Sunday, Helmut Marko, Red Bull motor racing advisor to Austrian owner Dietrich Mateschitz, offered his appreciation of the Dutch kid whose big-time career he helped launch, saying: ‘I never thought Michael’s records of seven world titles would be eclipsed, but Lewis has matched them or beaten them.

‘Can Max? Yes, but it will take a lot of things to fall his way. He isn’t interested in having all the stats to himself, though. One day he will just walk away.’

Yes, but until then, the straight-forward and uncomplicated Verstappen will be treated as Red Bull consider him today, as a gift from heaven.

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