Why Max Verstappen’s Struggle Is Good for F1

To say Max Verstappen is having a difficult season would be an overstatement, but the Dutchman is nowhere close to being as dominant as he was in the last three years. In 2023, by this time, he had wrapped up the championship title. But as things stand now, Verstappen will have to fight until the last day to defend his crown.

For F1 as a whole, however, this has been a positive change. In 2022 and 2023 — two seasons dominated by Verstappen, the viewership decreased worldwide, despite the sport gaining popularity as a whole in the years preceding.

According to Front Office Sports, F1 had 1.5 billion cumulative viewers in 2021, largely thanks to the exciting title battle between Lewis Hamilton and Verstappen, which went down to the wire. Verstappen dethroned a driver that had dominated the sport and made it ‘boring’ before, and neutral F1 fans were loving it.

Unfortunately in 2022 (and 2023), Verstappen did what Hamilton did: make the sport ‘boring again’, by winning almost every race. In 2023, the Dutchman won 19 out of the 22 races, which was a great figure for him, but not so much for fans who tune in to watch competitive racing. The viewership dropped as well, with an average viewership of just 1.1 million for each race.

Thanks to Verstappen’s struggles in 2024, the number has gone up. The figure is now at 1.3 million per race — not a significant increase, but enough to show that fans who left it, are tuning in again.

A repeat of 2021’s excitement

In 2021, Hamilton and Verstappen’s fight for the Championship came down to the final lap of the final race. While this may not be repeated this year, several drivers stepping up and competing for race wins has added to the drama.

Race weekends are unpredictable now, with Mercedes, Ferrari, and McLaren, all joining Verstappen and Red Bull in the mix. So far, there have been seven different race winners in 2024 with four of them winning two or more.

This is great for F1 viewership, and the fact that more drivers are competing at the front means that their fans will also tune in and possibly invest in buying merchandise — potentially increasing revenue for the sport.

At the same time, Verstappen struggling to win races as easily as he did in 2023 has humanized him more, and has also brought his teammate Sergio Perez some respite.

Verstappen’s woes calm Perez’s sacking rumors

Perez was under a lot of pressure in the early stages of the season, when Verstappen was winning comfortably, in contrast to the Mexican failing to get near the top three. There was a lot of noise, calling for Perez’s head. The majority of the community deemed him not good enough for Red Bull, and there were talks of him getting replaced mid-season.

But as the season went on and other teams kept getting better, Red Bull’s weaknesses kept showing up. The RB20 had several issues with its balance, and even Verstappen started to find it difficult to control the car. He entered a slump along with Red Bull, and has been winless for the last eight races — his biggest winless streak in four years.

What this also does is bring some calm to Perez. Many believe that Perez’s shortcomings are more a result of the car’s limitations than a reflection of his talent.

Perez also signed a contract extension with Red Bull, that will tie him to the Milton-Keynes-based team for another two years.

There were signs of close racing all along

In 2022 and 2023, when Red Bull (Verstappen in particular) was running away with race wins on an almost weekly basis, many team bosses pointed out how the field was bunched up together behind the Austrian squad.

Red Bull was too fast, and no one could catch them. However, teams like Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren, Aston Martin, and even Alpine were closely matched, often within a second of each other.

As such, the potential of the grid producing close racing was always there. All they had to do was wait for Red Bull to slip up, which it did in 2024. This also proved that the new regulations were not as bad as people thought it to be.

Regulation changes were never the issue

Ahead of the 2022 season, the FIA introduced radical changes to the regulations governing F1 cars, significantly altering their appearance and performance. This initiated the aerodynamics-heavy ‘ground-effect’ era in F1, designed to promote closer racing.

However, Red Bull dominating races and championships made the F1 community impatient, with many calling the races boring. However, the regulations were never the problem. It was Red Bull who overperformed, thanks to the plethora of top engineers at their base, including F1’s aero-god Adrian Newey.

In 2024, however, multiple issues plagued Red Bull’s pre-season. Newey and other top personnel wanted to leave, Team Principal Christian Horner was under investigation for alleged misconduct, and Verstappen was unhappy with the chaos.

The RB20 was nowhere near as good as its predecessors, and this gave way for closer racing — which was the FIA’s plan all along — to come into effect.

What’s next for Verstappen?

Verstappen is still leading the Championship standings, despite all the aforementioned struggles. He is 52 points ahead of Lando Norris, his direct title rival. And with six races to go, the ball is in his court.

All Verstappen has to do is finish at least P2 or above in the remaining Grands Prix and sprint races. Then, even Norris winning all would not help the McLaren driver win his first championship.

However, this is easier said than done. Verstappen knows what he has to do, but there will be other drivers on the grid vying for wins and podium places. Verstappen will have to fend them all if he wants to win his fourth World Championship.