F1 | Red Bull, Max Verstappen and the ticking of a clock that doesn't wait

Max Verstappen during the third free practice of the Monaco GP jumps straight onto the swimming pool curb and ruins his weekend, breaking his suspension and hitting the wall. Yet another bad mistake of a season born badly, with more shadows than lights, with chapels scattered around the world almost with scientific rigor. With the average of almost a sesquipedale "duck" per Grand Prix. In the three years of Red Bull, full of great races, surprising maneuvers, but just as many errors, incorrectness and missteps, what happened in Monte Carlo had never been seen.

Max, with his tail between his legs, approaches Helmut Marko, the eminence grise of Red Bull, in the pits and is in fact abruptly pushed away. An unequivocal gesture, moreover seen worldwide: go away, I don't want to hear you, I don't want to see you. Also put yourself in the shoes of the beverage giant. They defended the young champion to the hilt, they justified him even after the most unlikely and senseless maneuvers, they staked everything on him, neglecting a gentleman driver like Ricciardo and, indeed, actually deciding to give him up. Meanwhile, Ricciardo won in China and was the author of a surprising pole position in Monte Carlo. Max rammed Vettel in China and in Monte Carlo he will start from the back. It would drive us crazy.

The underlying problem is that it has always been said about Verstappen: he will learn, he will grow, he is young. Taking his innate speed skills at face value, that extraordinary talent that helped him reach the top of F1 while still a child. Yet even his pure talent must be framed, regulated, directed. The purest instinct, the wild impulsiveness, are necessarily associated with reason, wisdom, the ability to judge, a whole series of inhibitory brakes that transform a crazy horse into a thoroughbred one. You can be predestined, but you don't become a champion by acquired right. The burst of maturity must arrive sooner or later, otherwise the transition from promised to incomplete is rather short.

Time is running out for Verstappen. Helmut Marko's was the first real gesture of intolerance. For now the Dutch driver is making a living, on the victories of 2017, on the good races held at the end of the last championship, but as far as the current season is concerned we are bordering on total failure. Errors starting from Australia, repeated in Bahrain, China and Baku. Extreme race conduct, lack of nerves and clarity.

A not at all encouraging haul for the man who in 2018 was already supposed to be Vettel and Hamilton's bitter and main rival, an uncomfortable and irreverent opponent, who could very closely recall the very first Schumacher, the one who made veterans go gray of the Circus. Verstappen, on the other hand, seems lost, with the aggravating circumstance of constantly taking them from Daniel Ricciardo, who is very strong, but also "resigned" from the Red Bull team. He travels at full speed the wrong can. And what a waste of crystalline talent, prisoner of an eternal Peter Pan who doesn't want to grow up. Go go don't show up today...

Antonino Rendina

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