Formula 1: Max Verstappen’s improved form began well before 2019

Max Verstappen has been praised for his improved form through the 2019 Formula 1 season’s first seven races, but this improvement began well before 2019.

Aston Martin Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen, the driver who critics often referred to as “Crashstappen” or “Vercrashen” for his rampant involvement in incidents in the early stages of his Formula 1 career, has been arguably the most impressive driver in the sport through the first seven races of the 21-race 2019 season.

The 21-year-old Dutchman has displayed a clear growth and a lot more maturity than had been on display in past seasons, even as late as last season.

In fact, the start of the 2018 season for Verstappen was nothing short of a disaster. He spun out in the season opener, the Australian Grand Prix, before crashing in qualifying for the season’s second race, the Bahrain Grand Prix, and he was then involved in a collision in the race itself.

In the season’s third race, the Chinese Grand Prix, he was in position to win due to his tire strategy before he went off the track trying to pass Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsports’ Lewis Hamilton and then spun out trying to pass Scuderia Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel a few laps later.

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The season’s fourth race, the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, resulted in a crash in practice for Verstappen before he and teammate Daniel Ricciardo were involved in a wreck late in the race itself.

After an uneventful fifth race of the season, the Spanish Grand Prix, that resulted in him finishing in third place, he wrecked in practice for the season’s sixth race, the Monaco Grand Prix, a race for which he should have qualified on the front row and had a great chance to win given the mechanical issues that Ricciardo ended up enduring in it en route to a still dominant performance. However, because he wreck in the final practice session for this race, he could not compete in qualifying. He started the race in 20th place and finished in ninth.

Since then, you would be hard-pressed to find a significant incident that Verstappen has caused.

He followed up his ninth place finish in the Monaco Grand Prix with three consecutive podium finishes, including a victory in the season’s ninth race, the Austrian Grand Prix.

He was only forced to retire in two of the season’s remaining 12 races after this race, and he could not have prevented either retirement. He was forced to retire from the season’s 10th race, the British Grand Prix, due to brake failure, and he was forced to retire from the season’s 12th race, the Hungarian Grand Prix, due to power loss.

Following the Hungarian Grand Prix, Verstappen finished the season with nine consecutive top five finishes, including seven podium finishes, and he finished the season with five consecutive podium finishes. He also earned his second victory of the season during this nine-race span, as he dominated the Mexican Grand Prix for the second consecutive year.

Verstappen extended his podium streak to six with a third place finish in this year’s Australian Grand Prix to open up the season, and his top five streak is still intact at 16 races, 20 if you exclude last year’s British and Hungarian Grands Prix. His average finishing position is 3.31 over the course of these 16 races and 3.15 over the course of these 20.

Through the 2019 season’s first seven races, his average finishing position is 3.86, and he sits in fourth place in the driver standings. Entering this season, he had never recorded an average finishing position of better than 8.71 through a season’s first seven races, and he had never been higher than sixth in the standings at this point.

It is no secret that Verstappen’s improved form and maturity has been on display throughout the start of the 2019 season. But he is simply continuing what he started last season, something that went relatively unnoticed because of the major obsession over the fact that he was finding himself off the track and/or in the wall at pretty much every track to start the season.

Will Max Verstappen’s improved form continue throughout the remainder of the 2019 Formula 1 season? Will he earn his first victory of the season at some point in the near future? Both scenarios are very possible given the high level at which he has driven since right around this time last year.