Verstappen should get comfortable with finishing second - consistency is what championships are built on

"If you ain't first, you're last", opined Ricky Bobby in 2006's NASCAR-based sports-comedy Talladega Nights, advice passed down to him and later retracted by his absentee, dead-beat father: "That doesn't make sense at all; you can be second, third, fourth...hell, you can even be fifth!"

Thing is, the Ricky Bobby mantra long precedes the release of the film; racing drivers have often luxuriated in a 'win-at-all-costs' mentality, compromising on the bigger picture for that immediate dopamine rush. It's said that Ayrton Senna would prefer to retire than finish second, a standpoint that adds to his weird and gratuitous deification, while his long-time rival Alain Prost often took the 'by-the-numbers' approach to win four world titles.

Which brings us onto Max Verstappen, and his approach to the last two races. His approach to battling with Lando Norris in Austria appeared to side with Senna, prioritising a series of risky moves simply to preserve the lead. In the championship stakes, the contact between them actually benefitted Verstappen as Norris ultimately retired, but that's down to luck rather than judgment. On another day, it's Norris who gets off lightly while Verstappen registers a retirement due to damage.

This contrasts directly with the Dutchman's approach to a rain-affected British Grand Prix at Silverstone. In all but the final phase of the race, Verstappen trailed the Mercedes and the McLarens for outright pace; tyre degradation on the opening stint on mediums undid his first-lap pass on Norris, and cost position to Oscar Piastri - and almost Carlos Sainz - later on in the race. And, although the intermediate switch was well-timed to earn Verstappen position over Piastri and polesitter George Russell as the two came off worse in double-stack stops (or, in Piastri's case, the avoidance thereof), the Red Bull driver fell away once again.

It wasn't until the final stop and the call for hard tyres that Verstappen managed to make a play for second. It was a surprisingly risk-free drive, one where he accepted that the car wasn't particularly fleet of foot and worked with the team to strategise around those wrinkles.

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Contextualised by the current season, where Red Bull's advantage has been effectively wiped out by the chasing pack, Verstappen's Silverstone approach will have to be called upon more. On pace, he shouldn't have come within 1.4 seconds of Lewis Hamilton; that he did demonstrates that he can be just as brilliant when forced to play the numbers, and can squeeze everything out of an admittedly well-conceived strategy to best some of the faster cars. It's not a position that he's been in for a while; 2022 and 2023 were characterised by dominance, and he had a tailor-made car for the task of winning the 2021 title versus the Mercedes-Hamilton juggernaut that had defined the second half of the 2010s.

Verstappen gave chase to Hamilton but came up short in the British GP victory fight

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

Verstappen is now 84 points clear of Norris at the head of the championship; he needs one more win this year to ensure that, if he finished second in every other race to the McLaren driver, he'd have enough to clinch the 2024 title.

A "bank the points" strategy, on the face of it, seems anathema to Verstappen's mentality. He wants to win races by 20-30 seconds, and said as much in Austria last weekend, but those days of cruising into the distance seem very much numbered. McLaren is now a match for Red Bull on pace, and just needs to tighten up its strategic practices to maintain that. Mercedes seems to be in the ascendancy. Ferrari has dipped, but its reversal of its Barcelona upgrades should push the SF-24 to a more fruitful development path.

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That's not to say that Verstappen shouldn't battle for all his worth. In wheel-to-wheel combat, he's still a fearsome proposition; his presence behind the wheel of the matte-blue and yellow-tipped RB20 in a car's mirrors creates a near-Pavlovian defensive reaction from the driver ahead. That, allied to his instinctive car control and uncompromising robustness - one that very occasionally bleeds over into the realms of the feral - is what makes him so good in racing through the field. Those who viewed his Austria battle with Norris as excessive might disagree here, but his early penchant for the brake-and-swerve have become much more rarified today.

A Verstappen comfortable with the idea of finishing second is an even more formidable prospect than one that simply wants to risk everything to win

But equally, he needs to become comfortable with the idea that there are some battles that he'll lose this year. When you consider how the competitive order continues to swing with each race, Verstappen simply needs to be consistent to win the title; that means showing some restraint and taking a bit more leeway in the close-quarters skirmishes, and leaning on the team's strategy to minimise risk. That task is more challenging as Red Bull has lost some degree of tactical latitude given Sergio Perez's chronic underperformance, so Verstappen isn't going to have a consistent tail-gunner to soak up attention from the McLarens, Mercedes, and Ferraris.

Is it the way Verstappen wants to go racing? Blimey, no. However, this is the situation that has been foisted upon him; one that was always set to emerge at one point as Red Bull's development curve strayed into the area of diminishing returns. In that case, when the car is up to it, Verstappen can go after the wins to augment his still-impressive championship advantage. When it's not, then it's a binary choice: he either risks everything to win one race, or exerts some patience and becomes a trifle more selective with which battles to fight. First is better than second, but second is better than nothing.

As mentioned, this situation is new to Verstappen. Perhaps Austria was a lesson in restraint, to some degree at least, and Silverstone was another; he was richly rewarded for his patience. He chose not to even bother fighting Norris and Piastri as they made DRS passes into Stowe, aware that the race might come to him later. When it did, he knew implicitly that he could put the hammer down and start pressuring Norris - and to some degree, Hamilton - into taking too much out of their tyres in the final stint.

He may not like it, but without an all-dominant Red Bull car this year Verstappen will have to bank points when needed

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Arguably, a Verstappen comfortable with the idea of finishing second is an even more formidable prospect than one that simply wants to risk everything to win. That's not to say he should have let Norris through in Austria but, now we're at the halfway point of the 2024 season, a more risk-averse approach will pay dividends if Red Bull can't keep pace in the development stakes. Can't win? Finish second. It's not going to be the same driver winning every race, given how competitive the field is right now.

And when there's the opportunity to win? Take it, but don't get greedy.

Verstappen is still strong favourite to seal a fourth F1 title this year

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