How Verstappen became F1's worst team-mate

As you read this, new Red Bull Formula 1 driver Alex Albon is probably picking up a double-edged sword and swinging it for the first time.

His Red Bull shot begins at the Belgian Grand Prix and represents the career opportunity of a lifetime: perform well over the next three months or so, and he'll have a seat in a potentially title-winning car in 2020.

It could also backfire: struggle, and he'll lose vital momentum within Red Bull and risk lapsing into the sort of confidence spiral that swallowed up Daniil Kvyat.

And to induce a little extra jeopardy, Albon's sparring partner is the worst in F1: Max Verstappen. Being launched from the F1 midfield into a race-winning car 12 races into his career is a daunting prospect for Albon in its own right. Being judged against Verstappen only adds more pressure.

Pierre Gasly can attest to why Verstappen is a nightmare team-mate. His demotion from the Red Bull team followed roughly six months of being demolished by the 21-year-old.

There is little doubt that Gasly could have done a better job in the circumstances. His deficit to Verstappen was not simply the difference between a great driver and a good one. Instead, Gasly slipped back from the level he performed at for Toro Rosso, while Verstappen stepped up from an already impressive 2018.

That was a major problem for Gasly, who had tried to consider the glass half-full and take the view that going up against one of the toughest benchmarks in F1 meant he had the best possible person to learn from.

There were no fireworks, no internal politics, no instances of public gamesmanship from Verstappen to get one over on Gasly. In fact, the evidence is to the contrary. Red Bull openly switched Gasly to Verstappen's set-ups in a bid to kickstart the Frenchman's season, and Verstappen never took a swipe at his underperforming colleague.

Evidently, Verstappen was not a bad team-mate to Gasly in the conventional sense: a duplicitous operator engaging in nefarious activity.

The simple way to view it is that if Red Bull team boss Christian Horner's assertion that Verstappen is the best driver in F1 is true, then Verstappen is a terrible yardstick to be judged against. And that has been Gasly's reality, which will become Albon's for the rest of the season, and will be the same for pretty much anyone who goes on to partner Verstappen who isn't Lewis Hamilton.

There are still weaknesses in Verstappen's game - once or twice this season he has been a bit too scruffy in qualifying and not performed as strongly as he should - but his pole position in Hungary proved just how capable of making the difference he is, given Red Bull did not have the quickest car at the Hungaroring. And the tyre-management craft he honed at Toro Rosso is at an immensely high level.

By defeating Sainz to a Red Bull seat, replacing Kvyat and displacing Ricciardo as the lead driver, Verstappen has become the centrepoint of Red Bull's efforts

Verstappen's brace of victories in the first 12 races, Red Bull and Honda's ongoing progress and the prospect of further wins in Singapore, Mexico and Brazil (to name three of the best opportunities) will also only spur him on further. Albon will not find him any less committed than Gasly did.

Admittedly, it's quite easy to sing Verstappen's praises when it comes to pure performance. We can all see it. We know that makes him a hard driver to be paired with. What is less obvious is the stuff behind the scenes - nothing nefarious, but traits and qualities that have sculpted such an ominous team-mate. One of those is his ruthlessness.

Much has been made of the relationship between Verstappen and Carlos Sainz Jr at Toro Rosso, and the Spaniard's eventual exit from Red Bull instead of the two ending up paired at the senior team. It is used as evidence to portray Verstappen as a toxic political player within the team, an unstoppable steamroller that Red Bull has had no choice but to get behind, no matter what or who - see Kvyat's exit from Red Bull four races into the 2016 season - gets flattened along the way.

Yet the enduring positive relationship between Sainz and Verstappen - and how pally Verstappen and Ricciardo were when team-mates, even when Ricciardo was being routinely beaten last year - suggests that neither holds a grudge.

Any tension is more likely to be rooted in Verstappen's unstoppable rise clashing with Sainz's slightly less aggressive career trajectory, and not helped by the 'racing dad' situation of Jos vs Carlos Sr within the garage. Verstappen and Sainz were vying for a Red Bull seat and were not afraid to get feisty on-track to prove themselves. We saw that approach again with Ricciardo, for better or for worse.

Verstappen does not relent: whereas even Hamilton acknowledges he takes it easier in battle against his team-mate than another driver. That makes Verstappen a nightmare for a team-mate to get near, and a nightmare to go up against if they do.

By defeating Sainz to a Red Bull seat, replacing Kvyat and displacing Ricciardo as the lead driver - whether Ricciardo wants to admit it or not - Verstappen has become the centrepoint of Red Bull's efforts.

"I'm always improving, that's more experience," Verstappen tells Autosport. "Of course, I know that I have the team behind me to push me even further.

"In terms of feedback, I think it's the same. Of course you get more and more knowledge about it, but if you have understeer, you have understeer; if you have oversteer, you have oversteer.

"Those things don't really change, but I think they do maybe listen a bit more to me because I know the car better, and the team in general."

Look to Hamilton at Mercedes for the benefits that come with enjoying such a comfortable fit within a team. The better that relationship is the more seamless it is to work together. Trust is fostered, communication improves, and progress is almost linear.

Listening to Verstappen over the radio with his race engineer is the perfect example of this: if you think Verstappen is pampered or spoiled by Red Bull, you haven't heard the curt instructions to get on with it on the rare occasions Max is getting a little flustered or something has irked him.

Verstappen has blossomed as he has gained experience in F1 and stature within the team. He enjoys being part of the development process and was visibly more engaged during pre-season testing this year. Honda massively values his input and feedback.

The simplicity with which Verstappen discusses mechanical changes on an F1 car is daunting, and hints at the mental level he is operating at: yes, he's stunningly fast, but he's also quite cerebral

That means someone like Albon, so early in his F1 career, has a lot to learn from Verstappen. Gasly was not wrong to try to think, 'Hmm, maybe I should focus on what I can gain from this' rather than fear he would have his backside handed to him.

But the reasons behind Verstappen's progress are also a warning, because it serves as further evidence of the calibre of driver that Albon - or any team-mate paired with Verstappen - needs to match.

"It's about giving the right feedback and over the years you learn how to work with that," says Verstappen. "Also, working with my dad since I was four years old [has helped], testing a lot of things on the kart which is maybe not that much aero-dependent, but it's still quite mechanical."

The simplicity with which Verstappen discusses mechanical changes on an F1 car is quite daunting, given how much Gasly seemed to get lost in the maze of options available to him at Red Bull. It hints at the mental level Verstappen is operating at: yes, he's a stunningly fast driver, but he's also quite cerebral, too.

"Camber is camber still and on karts it's the same; going wider in the front, smaller in the rear," Verstappen adds. "You can do all those things the same at the end of the day, about how the car feels, and I've been working a lot on that since I was very young to try to get the right feedback.

"My dad would sometimes send me out, he was not telling me what he did to the kart, but he knew what it would do. And when I'd come back in he would ask me, 'So, what did you think?'.

"So I really had to start understanding what I was feeling, and you start finetuning about those changes. And in the car it's the same. Of course, it's a bit more complex but the basics are the same and over the years you finetune it and get better at it."

When Nico Rosberg joined Horner in declaring over the Hungarian GP weekend that Verstappen is the best driver in F1, he listed five reasons why. One of those was Verstappen's unique blend of youth and experience. And he is right. It's very easy to forget this is already Verstappen's fifth year in F1, which means his bank of knowledge is richer than the likes of Charles Leclerc but the raw speed of youth remains.

There is a blend of Fernando Alonso and Hamilton within the driver Verstappen is becoming. He's ruthless, commanding, intelligent, ultra-fast, brilliant with his tyres and beloved by his team. That's a ferocious combination and the reason he is Hamilton's biggest threat despite spending most of the season with the third-fastest car.

Whether he is as good or better than Hamilton right now is a different question, and a tough one to answer. One thing that isn't is how hard he will make the life of anyone who joins him at Red Bull.

Starting with Albon this weekend.