The errors Verstappen isn't making when it matters in F1 2021

There was one clear chance to get ahead, but no guarantee he’d get another. The move would require supreme skill and confidence, with a heavily scrutinised track limit marker to worry about. Get it right and a crucial grand prix victory would be his.

Max Verstappen got that exact scenario wrong at the end of the Bahrain Grand Prix, slipping off the road right when it mattered and handing Lewis Hamilton victory in the season opener – against the run of play. But he nailed it at the start of the Mexican GP last weekend, where his double pass on the front-row-sharing Mercedes cars was one of the overtaking moves of the season so far.

PLUS: Why Verstappen was untouchable after "crucial" Mexican GP Turn 1 pass

There’s now something of a pattern developing with Verstappen and these small-yet-big, fine margin moments – on which world championships tend to hinge.

He missed out on a pole that was there for the taking at Imola with a driving error early in his final lap. But such minor moments have been missing of late, with Red Bull’s recent qualifying defeats really going down to its procedures or calculations going slightly awry, or conditions simply moving away from the team (as happened in qualifying in Mexico City, before the unfortunate incident involving its sister squad late in Q3).

At Portimao, having muscled his way past Hamilton when the Briton gifted him Bottas’s tow at the restart, Verstappen rather cracked under the subsequent pressure from the hotly-pursuing Mercedes – slipping wide out of the penultimate corner (where his additional last-lap slip also cost him a point for the fastest lap). That gave Hamilton the chance to pass back before going on to win in Portugal.

In Mexico, when the pressure was at its greatest, Verstappen delivered.

Verstappen's Mexican GP start pass was finely judged, and supports a recent trend

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

The pressure was on because, really, Verstappen had more to lose last weekend. Yes, he’d arrived with a bolstered points lead after his Austin victory, but Red Bull was always expected to win at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez – just as it is this weekend at Interlagos.

Second in the circumstances was a fine result for Hamilton, who needs to hang on during this two-race streak on Red Bull ‘turf’ before the heading to the unknowns of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the reworked Abu Dhabi track.

Red Bull’s ‘favourite’ tag increased pressure and expectation on Verstappen last weekend, with the former elevated further when qualifying went so badly wrong. Plus, although his pace in free air proved just how much better the RB16B was in Mexico last weekend, Verstappen risked getting stuck behind Hamilton for the race’s duration if the world champion led after the first lap – given the passing difficulty Sergio Perez later encountered.

"I don’t believe in momentum. Every single race we have to try and nail the details. Things can go wrong very quickly or can go right" Max Verstappen

Strategy choices and Verstappen’s own tenaciousness may well have swung the race back to the Dutchman but winning at Turn 1 was still Red Bull’s best path to actual victory. And Verstappen really delivered there.

The pass – aided by Red Bull’s later braking ability at that point versus Mercedes thanks to its bigger rear wing – was the move of a champion. And Verstappen produced the drive of a champion after that, to take a third Mexico City win in four races.

PLUS: How Red Bull’s ace has become F1 champion material

There are still minor points to his 2021 game that need to be improved. No sportsperson would ever attest to their challenge not being one of continual self-improvement, but in the specific case of this season, Verstappen still needs to iron out the small struggle he seems to have switching from Q2 mediums to Q3 softs – another factor in Red Bull’s Saturday shambles last weekend.

Struggles in getting the best out of the soft tyre is a small area that Verstappen can improve on

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Plus, it’s still unclear exactly how he will react the next time there’s another genuine 50-50 passing situation with Hamilton. After all, a collision that takes them both out now ultimately benefits the points leader, so Verstappen can afford to retain his ultra-aggressive style – but at the same time he cannot afford to be the one solely taken out, a la Silverstone, if both drivers refuse to back down.

They came close at Austin, but Hamilton’s positioning far alongside the Red Bull on the inside run up the hill to Turn 1 meant Verstappen had already lost out there and he knew it. Not that it ultimately mattered on that sweltering day at Austin.

And so, to Brazil. Red Bull arrives once again as the favourite (with the season’s fastest car it does for every event, but its strong previous form in Sao Paulo enhances its pre-event chances). But just like in Mexico, Red Bull is favoured for different reasons.

It’s clear that Honda’s altitude edge is gone thanks to Mercedes’ efforts to better its power unit cooling – and in any case Interlagos is 1,480m lower than Mexico City, at 760m above sea level. This means every F1 team will be implementing more of a set-up compromise to nail the Interlagos layout – not just bolting on their max-downforce packages to get the best lap time from the thin Mexico City air.

PLUS: Why Red Bull's Mexico victory underlined a time-tested Newey strength

“I don’t believe in momentum,” Verstappen said of what his 19th F1 win and ninth of 2021 might mean for his chances this coming weekend. “Every single race we have to try and nail the details. Things can go wrong very quickly or can go right. It’s going to be really tight and exciting to the end. [Mexico] has been always a track really good for us, so I expect Brazil not to be like it was today.”

The unpredictable Sao Paulo weather could well be a factor, with Mercedes’ director of trackside engineering, Andrew Shovlin predicting: “If it is a hot circuit then it is probably going to move it in their direction, a bit of cloud cover may well suit us.”

As ever, understanding how the tyres are working – with different compounds to when F1 last visited Brazil in 2019 – and the track surface will be vital. Red Bull got this wrong in Turkey, while Mercedes nailed it – these are among the details Verstappen highlights.

Verstappen will be eager to avoid a repeat of the Turkish GP, where Red Bull was wide of the mark on set-up to optimise the tyres

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

One thing that may not be a factor for Red Bull this time around concerns the rear wing cracks it has picked up when preparing for qualifying at the last two races. At Austin this was caused by the considerable surface bumps. In Mexico, the team’s biggest rear wing was being subjected to speeds to which it wasn’t designed to encounter – the part typically being a piece of a Monaco/Hungaroring-special when average speeds are lower.

Pressure changes at this time of year with a world title on the line.

Hamilton knows this well, while Verstappen is going through this process for the first time in F1. But the Red Bull racer is showing he can learn from previous mistakes, which strengthens his position as the time that really matters in this ultra-close championship battle approaches.

Verstappen lacks Hamilton's experience in championship fights, but is learning from past errors

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images