Max Verstappen will become the Formula 1 G.O.A.T but, at the same time, the Red Bull ace is turning Grand Prix afternoons into boring snoozefests, says former F1 team boss turned occasional pundit Eddie Jordan.
Verstappen's 'Youngest-In-Just-About-All-F1-Related-Records' are unprecedented, and while with 41 F1 victories on his CV, he still has some way to reach Lewis Hamiltons' remarkable record of 103 F1 wins, and also not even halfway to the record seven F1 world titles the Mercedes driver shares with the great Michael Schumacher, the German also being a 91 time Grand Prix winner.
But at 25, Verstappen has at least a decade to rewrite the record books at the rate he is dominating his way to a third F1 World Champion title, an accolade this site stowed upon the Dutchman ahead of everyone. Barring force majeure, Max Verstappen is the 2023 F1 World Champion.
However, only eight races into a 22-race season this dominance has F1 switch-off in the making according to Jordan a guest on the Formula For Success podcast: "Max Verstappen will over time emerge to be the greatest driver of all time
"He's that good but I don't like the last couple of races, I have to tell you, I'm bored to death with them. He's just that good, he's making it boring, more than the Schumacher era!" lamented Jordan who gave the Schumacher his F1 break.
The F1 GOAT argument is always going to be that: an argument!
In the running, are F1 legends including Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, Niki Lauda, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton and now one in the making every race weekend we watch, in the form of Max.
Of course, no Hamilton fan will agree that Verstappen is the GOAT, and vice-versa. That's just to start. The best one can say is "So-and-so is one of the GOATs aka as more than one.
Johnny Herbert who was a teammate to Schumacher, will know a thing or two about GOATs, and told GIVEMESPORT before the 2023 F1 season started, that he reckons Verstappen is also heading there: "It's hard but for me already he is one of the best we've seen, because for me it's always about consistency, and he does not make mistakes.
"There was always the talk before he won his first F1 world championship that this guy is the next big thing. So it was almost like there was always an understanding anyway, that this guy's pretty hot and pretty special. Now he's achieved two titles I think he's already there as one of the best we've seen."
While Jordan bemoans the 'boredom' of Verstappen's dominance, Herbert as a race driver sees it differently: "I always enjoy watching him, and I always get wowed at what he does. Just as I got wowed by what Lewis [Hamilton] did only a couple of years ago, it hasn't finished for him yet, but there was a wow factor to him."
Herbert: Where Max is in the pecking order is a hard one because the times are so much different
Verstappen, like his GOAT predecessors, has lifted the benchmark to the point that right now, the only drivers capable of taking the fight to him are Hamilton and the other F1 living legend Fernando Alonso; the rest watch as they chase.
Herbert continued: "Whatever you think of Max with his elbows out type of racing, that's part and parcel of racing to be perfectly honest. It's not my style but that really doesn't matter. Because what he actually does with a racing car sometimes is pretty unbelievable.
"I enjoy what he's doing at the present time but where he is in the pecking order is a hard one because the times are so much different than what they were," added Herbert, a veteran of 161 Grand Prix starts and winner of three.
GOATs only become that or have a chance of becoming that, statistically for sure, if they have cars capable of doing business at the very sharp end of F1 for sustained periods of time. This century Ferrari's dominant cars aided Schumi attain his heights.
Same with Sebastian Vettel at Red Bull, in his time sustained domination for four years, and allowed the German to rack up some impressive stats and even more so than Sir Lewis, whose titles coincided with Mercedes building some of the most dominant and potent F1 cars the sport has ever witnessed.
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner knows how important the team effort is for Verstappen to rip into the record books, let alone become the undisputed F1 GOAT statistically: “That’s a big ask. He’s a 25-year-old and a double world champion. What he’s achieved already in this sport is amazing, but a lot will depend on the car that we give him. He’s the standout of the current generation of outstanding driver talent."
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