Formula 1: 3 Max Verstappen ‘weaknesses’ that can be exploited
By Asher Fair
Max Verstappen small weaknesses: No. 1 – Qualifying
Maybe you had a laugh at this one, but the statistics show that, throughout the course of a weekend, qualifying is the weak point for Verstappen.
Verstappen is often hailed as a driver capable of putting up a massive lap time, but more often than not, Saturday isn’t where he shines.
Despite having more than seven times as many victories (37 to 5), Verstappen only has three more pole positions than Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc (22 to 19). That’s a 6.39x difference in margin.
Despite winning five times as many races than Leclerc last year (15 to 3), he took fewer pole positions (10 to 7). That’s a 7.14x difference in margin.
Had he shown well in qualifying in Baku, who knows how things would have gone? He certainly wouldn’t have been run into by George Russell on Saturday, that’s for sure.
Of course, to call qualifying a “weakness” is probably a bit of a stretch.
Considering Verstappen’s pole-to-win ratio (77.27%) is second to none on the all-time list among drivers with more than one, and the fact that a majority (54.05%) of his wins have still come from a position other than pole, calling this a “weakness” almost means that you already inherently have to consider Verstappen the best Sunday driver of all-time. Think about it.
It’s more along the lines of a relative “non-strength” compared to his true strengths, but this, among other “non-strengths”, was evident on about as lackluster of a race weekend you’ll see Verstappen have.