Australian Grand Prix: for any Formula One driver bemoaning Max Verstappen’s dominance, try driving faster

Max Verstappen celebrates after winning the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Here’s a suggestion for any Formula One driver bemoaning Max Verstappen’s dominance. Try driving faster. And a suggestion for Mercedes-Benz, red-faced Ferrari and any other garage blaming their failures on inferior engines. Try building better engines. Verstappen’s dominance isn’t boring. Their inability to catch him is the yawnathon.

Greatness gets a bad rap in sport. The finest writers, singers and actors don’t cop the sort of criticism thrown at the world’s superior athletes. No one told Shakespeare to give it a rest, mate, you’ve written enough scripts and no one likes a smart arse. The Beatles weren’t told to put a sock in it – it being Paul McCartney – after Hey Jude because their sustained excellence was tedious and the Bee Gees couldn’t get a look in. No one told Marlon Brando to quit movies after The Godfather because two Oscars were plenty and the extras thought he was hogging the limelight. Soaring and sustained brilliance gets applauded everywhere except sport, where you get howled down for being too bloody good.

Take Tiger Woods. The most electrifying golfer in history was accused of making majors a snoozefest because he kept winning ’em. Roger Federer lamented “creating a monster” in his golden years. He waved his graphite wand with the flourish of a French swordsman and won majors so comfortably he could have played barefoot. But he said victories were rarely celebrated by the masses because they were expected. His losses were deemed more spectacular. How’s a bloke supposed to win?

Now Red Bull’s Verstappen is destroying his F1 rivals and marching towards all-time greatness in motorsport but every week he’s accused of destroying the sport itself.

In defence of greatness – how is it bad for sport? It’s brilliant. Let’s not drag one of Australia’s biggest and best sporting events into the gutter with a week of complaining about the seeming inevitability of the result. Engineering closer races is an off-track issue for the governing body. We’re on track, witnessing something special. The Verstappen era.

Verstappen has been untouchable at the top of the sport after controversially winning the 2021 World Championship over Lewis Hamilton with a late officials decision that was later ruled ‘human error’ and incorrect.

If you saw Bradman bat, you wouldn’t want him losing his off peg in single figures for the sheer novelty of it. You’d want the triple-century show. When I saw Ian Thorpe swim, I didn’t want him to sink like a stone. I wanted the commanding victory. Ditto for Verstappen. I hope he laps the lot of them. Then slow handclaps them home.

He’s fanging it better than Fangio in the 1950s, winning so easily he could be barefoot, too, one hand on the wheel and an elbow protruding out the side of his cockpit while he sings Men at Work’s Down Under. It’s a sight to behold. A whole lot of folks are hoping he conks out and loses for the drama and shock, but why want the best to be at their worst? He will race in Australia once this year. I’d prefer full metal Verstappen. The demolition job.

He’s paying $1.16. You haven’t seen a favourite this short since Winx. (She didn’t have to endure the tall-poppy syndrome. No one rolled their eyes at Winx’s 23-race streak and hollered, “booooring!”)

Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez is $9. Charles Leclerc is $15. The esteemed quartet of Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, George Russell and Lando Norris are $41, otherwise known as Buckleys. Piastri is $51 in his McLaren. Ricciardo is $501 in his Visa RB, which may as well be a mini-van. Michelle Payne would have more chance on Prince Of Penzance.

The grid may as well be inhabited by scooters, skateboards, BMX bikes and unicycles for all it really matters to the Red Bulls. But if they cannot drive faster, or build better engines, it ain’t Verstappen’s fault. A giant of world sport is among us. He has a better car than Batman. He’s the three-time defending world champion. He’s won 46 of his past 69 races. A win in Melbourne on Sunday would be his 10th in a row. All to his credit. He started this year by winning the Bahrain GP by 22 seconds. The Saudi Arabia GP was a real cliffhanger. He snuck home by 13 seconds while he was stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray and changing his radio channel. He might win at Albert Park by a day-and-half and here’s what I love about him: He will do it with glee.

“I don’t think about what’s good for Formula One,” he said last year. “If people can’t appreciate it, then you are not a real fan.”

His dominance is beginning to mirror that of a young Tiger Woods.

Verstappen does actually have to drive the car, at a breakneck average speed of 200km/h, for a couple of hours. It doesn’t find the chequered flag of its own accord. He knows a crash could kill him. He has to hold his nerve. He has to execute his race plans. He has to concentrate on every turn, every acceleration, every braking, every ducking, every weaving, every race instruction.

“He’s doing a wonderful job with the car,” says Red Bull boss Christian Horner, and there’s a key point. It’s one thing to be driving the best car on the grid. The Batmobile. You still have to do a wonderful job in it.

The 26-year-old Belgian/Dutchman will give Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton’s legendary record of seven world titles a shake by the time he’s done. He’s a reverse Bradbury. He’ll only lose if he’s the one falling over. Yes, he may put his foot down on Sunday and bid Perez farewell like Hugh Bowman to Glyn Schofield at Rosehill: “All right, son, cheerio!” Yes, he may sail across the line as calmly as Bowman doing his old she’s-apples salute. And yes, we may end up thinking Formula One is woefully formulaic if there’s another runaway victory by Verstappen’s streetcar named desire. And yet I disagree it’s a bore.

In defence of greatness – Verstappen is the Brando of his sport. Untouchable. Extremely watchable. Fearless. Charismatic. All he’s doing at the Australian Grand Prix is what he’s paid $55 million a year to do. Go big. Win big. His job. He should climb the podium and put some spin on one of Brando’s better lines: “Would people applaud me if I were a good plumber?”