Rob Smedley explains the mindset that makes Max Ve...

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Former Ferrari race engineer Rob Smedley has described Max Verstappen as “the final word competitor”.

Discussing which driver he want to function race engineer for throughout an look on the High Performance podcast, Smedley selected the four-time champion due to his self-motivation and drive to “humiliate folks” as the final word competitor.

“As a result of he is my kind of driver,” Smedley defined. “He is only a competitor.

“Like operating my very own enterprise now and whenever you interview folks, ‘how a lot of a self-starter are you?’ , what a ridiculous query. Who’s going to reply and say, ‘I am not a self-starter. I am unable to do something. You are going to have to inform me what to do like 24 hours a day.’

“Max is the epitome of anyone who brings his personal motivation and drive each hour of each day, proper? He’s so motivated. He’s a profitable machine. He desires to win. He’s so aggressive, proper? So, there’s by no means any doubt about that, proper?

“After all, each driver desires to win, however how a lot can they create it each hour of each day? How a lot can they be motivated to be the perfect? Not solely to be the perfect, however to place an enormous hole between me and the subsequent greatest. As a result of that is what he desires to do.

“He finds that motivation from someplace, just like the hole to the subsequent greatest driver on the grid is not large enough. I want it to be larger and I have to outperform myself and I want to tug the group alongside. And that could be a highly effective drug when you will have anyone in your facet like that, who’s so self-motivated.

Max Verstappen, Crimson Bull Racing

Photograph by: Andy Hone/ LAT Pictures through Getty Pictures

“You need to have all of the competency, and all the power and all of that. That is form of a given, you are a Formulation 1 driver. However having that further fringe of self-belief and with the ability to encourage your self and with the ability to encourage these folks round you, that to me is what a whole driver is.”

After a difficult begin to the 2025 season, Verstappen returned from the summer season break with a late surge in efficiency, difficult each Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri for the drivers’ championship. He finally completed in second behind Norris.

“He nonetheless desires it 110%. He desires it greater than anybody else. It is clear he desires it greater than anyone else. As a lot because it’ll in all probability be a ache for the opposite 19 to listen to this, that is why he is so profitable as a result of he will get up each morning and he brings it.

“And he’s motivated. He is the basic driver that you simply give him an inch, and he’ll take much more from you. And what does that do to all his different rivals? That places them even additional again. As a result of he simply retains going and going and going. I am certain most of them are him considering, ‘Come on, Max. Simply have a break day. Simply someday. Please simply have a weekend off so like we will all like do that.’

“However he does not as a result of it isn’t sufficient to beat folks. It is virtually to the purpose the place he desires to humiliate folks. And I do not imply that in a damaging means. I do not imply that in a nasty means, however that is what goes by means of his thoughts. He’s the final word competitor.”