Reigning world champion Max Verstappen, a Red Bull driver, will begin his Formula 1 title defense in Bahrain this weekend, after claiming his first world championship in the final race of the 2021 season.
The Dutchman overtook Lewis Hamilton in a single lap sprint, which came after a controversial interpretation of the sporting regulations was made by FIA race director Michael Masi .
But Verstappen and Red Bull always maintained that the way they got the title did not tarnish their success, since a world championship is achieved by being superior throughout the year.
Speaking in Bahrain on Friday, Verstappen dismissed any suggestion that he had anything to prove this year from the way he won the 2021 championship, pointing to his F1 numbers from last year.
“No, I showed it with the most wins and the most poles, and the most laps led,” Verstappen said.
“People forget about that. They only look at Abu Dhabi, it seems, but there are more races than Abu Dhabi in a season.”
Verstappen scored more wins (10), poles (10) and podiums (18) than Hamilton last year, as well as leading more than twice as many laps (652 to 297).
The Dutchman considers that this year he can still go one step further in terms of performance, although he believes that it will be difficult to repeat these results.
“If you look at last season, even during that year, I think yes, we could have even had more wins, and more pole positions,” Verstappen said.
“But you need a really competitive car to be able to do it. So it’s going to be very difficult to do something like that again.”
“But of course you always try to improve. So I hope that if we have a very competitive car again, we can achieve something similar.”
After winning the world championship last December, Verstappen called it the “ultimate achievement” in F1 and said any further success would be a “bonus”. But already in Bahrain, he made it clear that his motivation in F1 remains as strong as ever.
“The motivation is the same, or even more, again, because you want to keep winning, you want to just want to be at the front, right?” Verstappen said.
“Especially after last year, but you know, when, as a little kid, you always dream of, of course, becoming a Formula 1 driver, and hopefully one day you win a championship, but that has been achieved.
“That kind of pressure of wanting and needing to do it is gone. But you still want to win races and stuff. So that’s what I’m here for.”
