Why Verstappen's impatience could explode F1's driver market

Max Verstappen's racing career is a study in impatience. He is a young man in a hurry to achieve world domination.

Multiple champion in karting; 'get me straight to Formula 3!' Immediately successful in F3; 'I must be in Formula 1 as soon as possible!' Enormously impressive as a grand prix rookie with Toro Rosso; 'put me in a top team now!' Race winner with Red Bull on his debut with the team; 'next year I must win the championship!'

But Verstappen now finds his ambitions frustrated. Red Bull-Renault's failings under F1's new regulations have left the alliance cut adrift from Mercedes and Ferrari.

Red Bull misjudged the new 2017 aerodynamic rules that were meant to suit its strengths, and spent the first five races fixing its mistakes. Renault admits the necessary overhaul of its engine concept undertaken over the winter was too drastic, making the unit unreliable.

Verstappen's season has been badly affected by that unreliability - worse than Fernando Alonso's McLaren-Honda, he reckons. While the situation is not quite as dramatic as that, Verstappen has lost many points (he sits only 10 clear of Force India's Sergio Perez in the standings) to mechanical retirements, four of which can be directly attributed to Renault.

Verstappen was running second to Lewis Hamilton when a battery failure took him out of the Canadian Grand Prix; an engine problem robbed Verstappen of a potential victory (that went to team-mate Daniel Ricciardo) the way the race in Azerbaijan played out; a clutch problem destroyed his grand prix even before the first-corner crash in Austria; and an engine shutdown took him out of what was effectively his home event in Belgium after just seven laps.

Following that last disappointment, Verstappen's father Jos made his family's feelings about the situation clear, telling Dutch TV station Ziggo Sport: "This won't last if things keep going like this."

But the 2018 driver market is pretty much sewn up as things stand. Apart from Valtteri Bottas being confirmed as a Mercedes driver again, the Fernando Alonso stay-or-go saga at McLaren-Honda, and the annual 'who will be Renault's second driver?' lottery, the major seats are filled.

Hamilton has a contract, Sebastian Vettel recently agreed a new three-year deal with Ferrari, Kimi Raikkonen is sticking around for at least one more year, and Ricciardo and Verstappen are tied down to Red Bull.

Red Bull admits Ricciardo will come into the market next year - the final season of the extension he signed at the end of 2016, when he was F1's outstanding driver - but insists Verstappen is under contract at least a little longer.

"He has a contract for 2019," said Red Bull boss Christian Horner after July's Austrian GP. "Then, after '19, he's on the open market."

But the situation may not be so clear cut. Verstappen is a driver who knows his own power and popularity. He is ruthlessly ambitious - and will let nothing stand in his way. Even Red Bull.

He is committed for one more season at least, out of loyalty as well as contractual obligation, but if Red Bull cannot deliver the championship he craves, there is a serious suggestion he could break his contract and walk away.

"I've always said that there's no reason to leave when I have a competitive car," said Verstappen earlier this summer. "At the moment, we are not there where I want to be, but that doesn't mean you have to give up straight away. You have to work hard.

"But after two, three years without improving, that would be a different story. We are working hard to improve, but after next year we will see what happens."

Translation: 'sort things out for next year or I'm off'. Apparently, Red Bull pledged a title-winning car for this season, when Verstappen signed his deal to usurp Daniel Kvyat four races into last year's campaign. Red Bull clearly hasn't succeeded in that task, and supposedly told Renault after the Belgian GP that it is in danger of losing Verstappen if the situation doesn't improve dramatically.

The pressure is on for Red Bull-Renault to do considerably better. Raikkonen's seat is up for grabs in 2019, so Ferrari is ready to react. What price Bottas's expected new contract will leave Mercedes similar wriggle room?

Asked by Autosport whether Renault had apologised for the Spa debacle, where the faulty engine supposedly fired back up once the car returned to the garage, Verstappen replied tersely: "I don't need apologies, I want it to be addressed."

Ricciardo made the point coming into Monza that he has suffered a similar level of unreliability to Verstappen this season, it's just that the bulk of Ricciardo's failures have come during practice or qualifying sessions rather than races.

The affable Australian's own faith in Red Bull-Renault was sorely tested during the 2015 season, when he expected to challenge for the championship after winning three races in his breakout first season with the team in '14, but was left sorely disappointed as the squad took a backward step. Having come through the other side of that setback, he has learned to roll with the punches better, and urges his young team-mate to show restraint.

"He's just got to take the approach that he's driving well," Ricciardo says. "It's not like he's driving badly and having reliability problems. He's just got to look at the big picture. He could easily have 15 more years in the sport if he wanted.

"He's one of the youngest drivers in the sport, he's obviously got a lot of talent and a lot of people are saying he can do great, great things over his career, so he's just got to use that to get him through these patches."

It was interesting to learn during the Italian GP weekend that Renault has pledged extra support to Red Bull to try to arrest its run of poor reliability. Verstappen said he wanted it to be addressed and it seems Renault is listening.

"We have done two or three types of responses," says Renault F1 boss Cyril Abiteboul. "The first type of response is that every single type of incident Max has had, like any other driver, there is some countermeasure in place. In particular, the last one being the sensor default that we had in Spa.

"There is now a much better procedure that is better documented than what we had. I am not looking for excuses. It should have been in place and is now in place.

"The second element is that, in terms of parts introduction, in terms of race engine allocation, parts allocation, we have been more than loyal actually, focusing on making parts available, the best parts available, to Red Bull Racing, to the expense of Renault. I am not aware of any other engine manufacturer that would have done the same.

"And the last thing, in terms of people, the people Red Bull have are great people, but we have added more resources. It has not happened yet, but it will happen from Singapore onwards, when we will have someone dedicated to them, plus someone else looking after reliability and operations.

"We feel that we have this duty to Red Bull, and to Max."

Ricciardo's charge to fourth from the eighth row of the grid at Monza showed what Red Bull-Renault is potentially capable of, if only it can unlock more power for qualifying and not chew through the engines like it's going out of fashion.

Abiteboul says next year's Renault engine will "be designed in a very reliable manner" and "there will be a big improvement in terms of performance". Essentially, this year's pain will be worth it for next year's gain from the new engine architecture.

Verstappen's Monza race was characteristic of his impatience to succeed - 14th to eighth inside a lap, before a clash with Felipe Massa's Williams that caused a puncture and left Verstappen playing catch-up, followed by a further clash with Romain Grosjean and a near-miss with Grosjean's Haas team-mate Kevin Magnussen.

Verstappen salvaged a point, but his frustration at yet another missed opportunity was clear. Without the engine penalties, he would have started on the front row and avoided all that mess in the first place.

The pressure is on for Red Bull-Renault to do considerably better next season, or it potentially risks losing the most exciting driver line-up on the grid in one go. Raikkonen's seat is up for grabs again in 2019, so Ferrari is ready to react. What price Bottas's expected new contract will run to similar terms, to leave Mercedes with similar wriggle room?

Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff has already indicated that his team has a keen eye on developments elsewhere, as it waits to finalise its driver line-up for next season. He continues to say extending Bottas's contract is a "no-brainer", while Hamilton revealed during the Italian GP that he plans to extend his stay at Mercedes beyond the end of next season, now that Vettel has agreed fresh terms with Ferrari.

But, as Wolff remarked at Silverstone in July, "it's not only about 2018, it's about looking forward and what happens in '19 and '20, the risk and opportunities".

The very real risk that Verstappen may walk away from Red Bull if the team is not properly competitive next year presents an opportunity for Mercedes. It tried to sign Verstappen once before, but missed out when it couldn't match Red Bull's offer to put the then-F3 rookie immediately into F1 with Toro Rosso.

Wolff is undoubtedly a fan of Verstappen, and star driver Hamilton consistently says he would relish the challenge of going up against any driver in the same team.

Wolff played down a meeting with Verstappen's father Jos during the Italian GP, but old friends or no, you can be sure Mercedes will watch developments at Red Bull with keen interest over the next 12 months, waiting for a potential driver-market explosion fuelled by Verstappen's growing impatience to become Formula 1 world champion.