Doornbos: "This indicates that Verstappen drives with his head"

Max Verstappen had a somewhat boring weekend in Bahrain, as he had already dropped out in the first round after having to swerve for Charles Leclerc, who also dropped out after he touched Sergio Perez. Verstappen was simply unlucky, while he drove very carefully and responsibly to avoid any kind of accident.

Lack of momentum

Robert Doornbos, analyst at Ziggo Sport, looks back on the last race in his column and indicates that Verstappen was really driving with his head. "Turn one it was already Russell who got through that easily, but behind him it was Bottas who really had some trouble getting his tyres up to temperature.

"Of course he drove on the medium tyre, had a small moment in turn two, which isn't full throttle yet at the start of the race with those full tanks and cold tyres," the former F1 driver continues. "Max really had to get off the throttle, so he missed some momentum up the hill and Sergio Perez passed by on the side. So far nothing wrong, although Verstappen foresaw problems."

No sandwich

"And then he found himself in a sort of drag race to turn four with three men: Perez, Verstappen and Bottas. And Max... he was passive in that sense and I thought that was very strong of him, which indicates that he rides with his head. He thinks: 'This isn't going to happen to me what happened in Singapore 2017', that you get into that sandwich and all three men fly off."

"So Max braked a lot earlier than what you would normally do, but on the inside of him was Charles Leclerc. He chose to brake late, if not too late, and he thought: 'I'll brake that Mexican out too'. That was a bit too much of a good thing and a touché was the result," with an annoying result for the Dutchman.

"Max had to go around it, there was nowhere to go and even though there was no gravel pit, it was the end of the story and in the wall. For the Dutchman it was really sour, he couldn't do anything about it, but his weekend was over." 

And with that Doornbos touches on an interesting point, because where in the past Verstappen wanted to come forward quite aggressively in situations like that, the Dutchman was very calm.

This calm and more thoughtful approach could have worked well if Leclerc hadn't come along so rashly. After all, getting out avoided a potential sandwich, but had to pay for it with a car in the wall.