The Red Bull driver had been cool, seemingly bulletproof throughout the season. He brushed off the low moments and never appeared overly obsessed with viewing the world championship as some monumental life achievement.
“It’s not really going to change my life,” he had said back in October. To him, it was always simple: he and Red Bull do their best, and if that wasn’t enough to win the title, they could still sleep easy at night.
That mindset would have been put to its sternest test as the laps ticked down in Abu Dhabi – prior to Nicholas Latifi’s crash and the subsequent safety car – when it became clear Verstappen’s fresh tyres weren’t going to be enough to catch Hamilton at the front.
Sergio Perez’s mighty defence had brought Verstappen back into contention, and the decision to pit under the Virtual Safety Car offered another chance to fight back. But the pace of the Mercedes was simply too much.
The late twist, the “miracle” that Christian Horner said Red Bull needed with 10…
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