Is Verstappen Racing Leclerc Differently in 2022 to Hamilton in 2021?

Apologies If I sound a little different in this video it's because when I recorded this I was feeling a little ill, all back to 100% working capacity now

I definitely think he is racing Charles different. Almost like the roles are reversed. Max has two things that Charles doesn’t, which is experience winning a tile and not having Ferrari strategists.

We've got to remember that the cars are fundamentally different this year.. last year the chasing driver might have 1 or 2 opportunities before they succumbed to heat and dirty air, so they were always desperate to make the move stick when they got close the first time. This year the chasing car can sit right behind the leading car and wait patiently for a good opportunity, which is leading to calmer, smarter, and more tactical racing overtakes.

I havent seen this being mentioned a lot. But the cars definitely play a role. Last year, we saw in bahrain max only had one chance to overtake for the lead. This year in bahrain and saudi the car behind could stay close for several laps so they dont have to do a divebomb at the very first opportunity. So last year, eg spain max went for a big lunge into T1 knowing that if he stayed behind even if he was slightly faster he wouldnt have ever got past because of dirty air. But this year he can afford to take a bit more time and less risk during overtakes. Hopefully that all makes sense

Max's driving style this year reminds me of a comment by Dr. Marko, that Red Bull are just being patient and waiting on Ferrari to choke then they will run away with the championship. Ferrari may be back to fighting for wins, but the problems that kept them from taking the 2017 and 2018 titles still exist. Bad strategizing, failure to keep up in development, even toxicity at times. If RB do not keep screwing up their reliability I expect this championship to be over long before the final race

I would say with Max this year is that the pressure is off him due to the fact that he’s won the championship and I probably think he has to be cautious with his driving due to the fact that he has penalty points that only expire later on in the year. But anyways your videos always top notch my friend

I think Max said it himself last year after he won the title. His goal in Formula 1 was to win a world championship, all what happens next is just a bonus. Of course he will push to the absolute limit every race, but he feels a lot less pressure than last year, when he wasn’t world champion. I think because Max feels less pressure for himself, he is able to react more calculated to the approach of Leclerc. I am convinced we will see a crash this season, but I think the battles on track will be cleaner than last year.

I think that we have to look to 2016 and 2018. Rosberg always says that Lewis played mental games with his championship opponent. That it made Rosberg quit the sport and seb Vettel crash into Hamilton under the safety car. I think Verstappen drove as agressive as he did to win the mental battle against Lewis. To drive down Hamilton confidents. And I think this year it is more about hard and fair racing between max an Charles.

I absolutely love how these 2 race each other, there is so much respect between them what makes their battles a joy to watch

i feel that after siverstone, max was very much more aggressive since he felt lewis was at fault and not punished properly

For me I think verstappen respects leclerc much more than he did with Hamilton. I think Hamilton being a 7 time champion and much older than max, that allowed max to fuel his ego and maybe wanted to prove a point whereas with leclerc he’s raced him since they were teenagers so he knows he doesn’t really have to prove that point as such because before last year max and Lewis only went wheel to wheel on like 3 occasions whereas Charles and max had been wheel to wheel since idk how long from when they were teens. Also max had not won a championship before last year and it was the first time he had a car to do and Lewis was much more cautious which allowed max to be more aggressive.

it must have been horrible for Lewis when Max lapped him in one of the recent races. I really enjoyed Lewis and Max going at it last year. It makes it much more exciting. They both crossed the line at different points last year - I think Lewis was at fault for Silverstone and Max at Monza. It was like Prost and Senna all over again.

I feel Max last year raced Lewis in an aggressive way to put up a point that "come on champ, this time I'm here for real and you're not going to win this as easily as you did these past years" he clearly rattled Hamilton in the first half of 2021 and some of the scars of that are even visible now IMO. there was definite animosity in those battles and Kudos to max for showing the guts to stand up to a team dominating for years and pushing right upto the limit and beyond. something that vettel couldn't do in 2017, 2018

I think a large part of this has to do with the Red Bull's characteristics of this season versus last. Last season, Verstappen had a quick car in the corners that could fire up its tires quickly, but had issues with tire wear. As a result, his windows to attack other drivers were short, so he'd have to be aggressive when behind and drive away fast when in front. This season, Verstappen has a quick car on the straights with good tire management, so he can afford to wait for his rivals' tires to go off before attacking. As a result, to maximize the car's characteristics, Verstappen has driven this year's Red Bull more conservatively whereas he drove last year's Red Bull very aggressively. I think another thing to keep in mind is the difference between Mercedes and Ferrari as teams. Red Bull and Mercedes have world class teams, strategists, and pit crews. Ferrari, on the other hand, does not match up to Red Bull in these regards, especially when it comes to strategy. Because Verstappen and Red Bull don't have to worry about a good Ferrari strategy, Verstappen can (once again) afford to be more passive and let the race develop, and simply wait for Ferrari to screw up. This was not something he could rely on last year.

Max and Charles race hard and fair. Lewis is a sneaky bastard. The years of driving the dominant car made it look like he was the calculated, almost Prost-like strategist. But whenever he is put under pressure, he becomes a dirty driver. Look at how he raced Rosberg. And after Silverstone Max had zero respect left for Lewis. Can't blame him.

In 2021, it was Max vs Lewis, Wolff vs Horner and RB pit crew vs Merc pit crew... It was carnage... It was personal in 2021.

I think you'd want to check the cooldown room moment after the Brazil 2018 race. Max and Lewis both chat about how he got taken out by ocon. Max however is adamant that he's not at fault which is completely understandable but Lewis let's him know that he(max) had a lot more to lose than him. it was a pretty cool convo imo

For me, its probably due to the different approaches the drivers have. Lewis has 7 championships, his mastery of F1's psychological battle and mind games allowed him to completely ruin Seb in the 2017/18 title challenges. This does mean however that people can freely study and prepare against Lewis' tactics, and Max knew that to beat Lewis he needed to employ mind games of his own. To me his forceful driving last season was a way to get into Lewis' head, which worked, as shown by Lewis having to change his approach from Silverstone onwards, as well as having an uncharacteristically mistake-ridden season, many of which cost him the championship come the end. Charles by comparison is unrpoven and relatively straight-forward. Charles doesnt employ mind games and the way he is currently trying to win the championship is as simple as "just driving". Beating Charles could be as simple as being more consistent, more aggressive, and more ruthless than he is. Right now Max is just driving like usual, similar to Lewis last season where he started out just using the approach he has always used, only later into the season did tactics change. Charles and Max are very similar drivers which is why I have liked them both since the start of my time watching the sport (admittedly not very long ago), which gives this rivalry, one that has been around since 2019 a "Hakkinen-Schumacher" feeling.

Hamilton is very aggresive too, I find it very peculiar that people never notice this.

It seems to me that the difference is with the old cars they had way less chances to pass and couldn't follow behind well at all. Now with so many chances and good following ability it's less necessary to lick the stamp and send it as Danny Ric would say Edit: upon watching it seems like Max is getting the blame for most, if not all, incidents in 2021. Little bit of bias showing for sure lol