Go hard or go home: We should applaud Verstappen seizing the moment at Imola GP

Chutzpah – a word that, pronounced correctly, sounds vaguely reminiscent of a cat trying to eject a furball from its oesophagus. Derived from Hebrew, it describes a manner of supreme self-confidence and audacity, qualities Max Verstappen possesses in spades.

He is a polarising figure in the world of motorsport fandom but even those who practice to dislike him ought to respect moves such as the one which won him the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix – even if that respect comes grudgingly and with all the grace of, yes, a cat coughing up a furball.

As Max made a slightly stuttering launch from second on the grid, it looked for a fleeting moment as if he would be disputing third place behind George Russell and fighting Lando Norris. And yet by the apex of the first, left-hand segment of Tamburello, he was alongside Oscar Piastri’s McLaren and staking a claim for Piastri to give him room.

It was a replay of the first corner in Saudi Arabia, but done right. No spearing off-track and rejoining in an unearned lead, no need for team boss Christian Horner to arrive at the post-race press conference with a sheaf of inconclusive screen grabs, no need to pump prime the lunatic fringe of toxic fandom to shriek about the perceived injustice.

Just two drivers at the top of their game, duking it out for position without hitting one another.

“The main factor remains the swap of position and the outcome of lap one,” was McLaren team principal Andrea Stella’s typically scientific take on it.

Verstappen had been recovering from a poor getaway before blasting into the lead

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

“It was a great move,” was CEO Zak Brown’s more emotive view. “I don’t think we had anything for him [Max] today.”

“The start was pretty average,” said Horner. “It was the first corner and I think maybe Oscar was more focused on [George] Russell and he left the slightest of gaps – and Max just sent it and it was kind of win it or bin it. He’s just so good in that situation where he just sees a gap and it's so decisive for him.”

Piastri thought he had the corner – that he had both the inside line and enough distance from Verstappen after the initial getaway. He had the presence of mind and car control to avoid taking them both out – or running Verstappen off onto the gravel, as Charles Leclerc would do to Alex Albon later in the race.

For good or ill, Verstappen is a force of nature. You don’t have to like it

Max’s detractors will, no doubt, claim that if the positions were reversed, Verstappen would have had no compunction in releasing the brake a little and ‘occupying the crease’, to use a cricketing term, using his car as a block to force the other driver to give it up. Well, that’s what the comments section is for.

For good or ill, Verstappen is a force of nature. You don’t have to like it.

Indeed, haters, take heart from 19th century essayist William Hazlitt’s words in his seminal tome On The Pleasure Of Hating.

“Public nuisances are in the nature of public benefits. How long did the Pope, the Bourbons, and the Inquisition keep the people of England in breath, and supply them with nicknames to vent their spleen upon!

“Had they done us any harm of late? No; but we have always a quantity of superfluous bile upon the stomach, and we wanted an object to let it out upon…”

Verstappen remains a divisive character but his overtake on Piastri at the start at Imola cannot be questioned

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images via Getty Images