How Max REINVENTED Schumacher's Driving Style

Max Verstappen has a REALLY distinctive driving style, and it reminds me A LOT of how Michael Schumacher drove. So much so, that I’ve been comparing their onboards, and it’s been SUPER interesting.

Max Verstappen drives with a Schumacher style, but one that’s been adapted for the cars of now. Let me explain.

Schumacher drove with a distinctive style, he liked a lot of oversteer in his cars. Meaning he liked the balance of grip in the car to favour the front axle.

So he would like the aero balance, the weight distribution and rake of the car to all favour the front - giving him incredible front-end grip through the corners.

This meant he could rotate the car VERY quickly, pivoting it in the middle of the corner.

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[speedgoat]

I do this when I’m shopping, I load the front of the trolly with all the heavy stuff, leaving a loose rear. Going into isles, I brake late and use the loose rear to rotate quickly into the isle. Not going to lie, misjudged this technique in the early days a few times, ended up inside the meat freezers. With a vegan wife you can imagine the despair this caused.

[ramoncf]

A couple of years ago, in a F1 Racing magazine they did an analysis of Schumi's driving style using Suzuka telemetry data, and it's pretty much what this video says, Michael would enter the corner with a huge velocity, use front grip to brake late and control rear slide midcorner with the throttle. Very smooth (at least with the steering wheel) and very fast. Also Michael was among the very first to embrace electronic drivers aids and adapted his driving style to maximize its effect, nowadays driving aids have been banned so it's difficult to compare both drivers but they share some traits.

[mandst]

Max reminds me of Michael in more ways than just driving styles. Maybe Jos learned from his good friend Michael and imparted that knowledge to young Max ? Sadly Michael didn’t get the chance to guide young Mick through his F1 career 😢

[mirrrie]

I always said that when Schumi held baby Max his talent went to Max

[Sir-Lewis-P-Diddy-Hamilton]

Max, Micheal and senna both make the car dance. Top 3 talents of all time

[robertcarr]

Iv thought this for years. I was blessed to watch all the Schumi years, and by far Max reminds me most of him. Driving ability and style, and of course that teflon exterior too 😅

[rafaelzorzal]

We would love an analisys on Albon and how he is managing to get the results he is getting in a William's!

[TheRealVranesh]

I was watching Max's first free practice in Suzuka. I remember Schumi used to constantly correct the steering wheel, a lot of micro adjustments. Max's driving was soooo similar to that, so I ended up searching for it to see if I am just crazy. Here we are

[kartikkaushik]

Would love to see a comparison of the driving styles of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc. Almost opposite styles with very similar results in the same car, could be fascinating

[BPBomber]

These episodes of driver61, where Scott takes us into his genius analysis of driving styles, are some of my favorite.

[alastairjones]

The Haas is unstable at the rear which Hulk uses to his advantage over a flying lap. Similar to Max, Nico can rotate the car early and carry more speed out whereas K-Mag can’t deal with the instability.

[RogerM]

I cringe with Checo and Lewis fanboys claiming "the car is designed for Max", to explain his dominance. Hundreds of Engineers develop the faster car they can, and it's the Driver task to develop it further with their feedback, and maximize their speed with their chosen setup.

[Reaz]

Max is Michael‘s heir and the best driver since the 🐐 left the sport. It‘s absolutely amazing to see a driver of the same calibre as Schumacher and Senna again.

[Cubaquois]

I'm an old Canadian driver, mostly stock car. I always saw a little bit of Jacques Villeneuve in Max as a rookie, but I must admit that recently Max has been studying the schumi book.
Great video 👍

[SRFriso]

There was an interesting video recently on the Red Bull Motorsports channel, where Verstappen learns to drift. It's amazing to see how quickly he picks it up. About as far removed as you can get from driving an F1 car, yet he has a feel for it.

[ultrascreens]

2001 suzuka pole is one of the best quali performances of all time. Its just breathtaking to watch. Such speed for over 20 years ago..

[ericdeven]

Schumacher has more of a motorcycle line, brake a bit later and deeper, make the apex earlier yet and you have a motoGP line. Saves on tires and higher speeds at the end of the straights and carry it longer helps melt precious tenths away. Great video.

[Scenario]

As usual, another excellent video from Driver61.

I spotted Schum at the beginning, when he was 6th or 7th in qualifying for his first race as a jumper. After Niki Lauda, he was my second hero and I always admired him. Millions of people have already raved about how good he was or how much they didn't like him, I was simply impressed by his speed, the way he drove while respecting the boundaries but always attacking.

[DaniMacYo]

Always said Max reminds me of The Michael when he performs. I enjoy watching Max drive. Michael is my Childhood hero and it was his driving style that made me enjoy watching him race win or lose I just enjoyed watching Schumacher dance an F1 car around circuits. I truly wished Michael could have guided Mick a long the way. 😔🙏

[TheGrandmaMoses]

Where I'm from, this technique is called undercutting the corner. They taught this to me when I participated in a track preparation event for motorcycles.

Their reasoning was simple: If you undercut, you have more time with a straight bike into the corner, then a shorter time during which the bike is leaning ( although it is leaning more heavily at that point ) and a longer acceleration out of the corner. You're straight for longer and you lean for less time, although with more angle. Your line isn't a circle, it's a 'V'.

And as the bike is fastest when it's straight and slowest when it leans, minimizing the lean time sounded like a perfectly good practice for motorcycles, which go through corners much slower than cars, but accelerate faster.

It's cool to see that this technique also works out for cars, but requires a more turn-oriented front end. This is the same as with motorcycles, as written above you have to get a higher maximum lean angle when undercutting. But you will lean for a shorter amount of time. To achieve a 'higher lean angle' on cars, we need more turn-in with a stable front-end, so this makes perfect sense. Also, we cannot have it understeer at all or our line would be all over the place and every inside-of-a-corner would be missed.

For clarification, in this technique you hit the inside of the corner much, much later than on the racing line and only when your turning is almost finished. If you think of the 'V' as your line, you'd hit the inside of the corner ( not the mathematical apex, mind you! ) to the right of the lowest point of the 'V', when you're almost straight going out again.

What it comes down to is turning a longer, wider corner into a shorter, tighter corner to maximize the time spent in a straight line. This allows overtaking on the straights while having a lower corner speed - but they cannot drive through you in the corners, even if they were that bit faster there.

But today, as racecraft is high amongst all F1 guys ( even Stroll ), they all know about the switcheroo - which means, if you employ this driving stlye they'd let you pass on your way into the corner, making sure that you pass towards the inside - then do an even more pronounced undercut to be on the throttle even earlier than you and take the place back. People didn't do that in Schumacher's time and today Max has just too good of a car to see how his driving style really compares. I seem to remember Ricciardo being on par with him when their car wasn't as good, and he goes about it completely differently.

At the end of the day, your vehicle dictates your driving style as there is one primo way to make your vehicle go the fastest. You do not use one driving style for all vehicles - you use what is fastest for that particular vehicle. And the truth is, some guys do that better ( we call it adapting ) and some guys don't. This Red Bull is fastest when Max handles it the way he does. If he drove another car, he'd employ another style - maybe for the better, maybe for the worse.