How often have we seen the world of Formula 1 split into half over an incident in the last decade? How often have we seen an issue evoke genuine passion from fans and those involved alike? How often have we seen one incident sting a team so badly, that they have gone to unbelievable lengths to turn a decision in their favour?
It took a while, but there we have it. With Lewis Hamilton vs Max Verstappen, we always knew that a top tier rivalry was on the cards, but this is beyond top tier. It has crossed the line that divides the good rivalries from the great ones, that separates ones like Webber v Vettel from top notch ones like Hamilton v Rosberg. Now, there exists an air of anticipation around everything Verstappen and Hamilton do, be it how they celebrate, how they behave on a sim race, how to respond to the media, everything. Cue ‘Every breath you take’ by The Police?
Judging from the way he has upped his game this season, Lewis Hamilton certainly must have paraphrased this iconic meme post pre-season testing!
What makes Hamilton v Verstappen a great rivalry?
What makes a great rivalry? Is it intensity? Every battle in Formula 1 brings an extremely high baseline of intensity, even if it is the one for P10 in the race, there’s got to be more. Is it controversy? Brawn GP’s double diffuser was one of the most controversial issues in all of Formula 1, yet the battle between Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel wasn’t anywhere on the level of those like Hamilton v Alonso.
While these two crucial elements on their own don’t ensure a rivalry that will go down in the books as ‘a classic’, they are critical pillars towards it, as demonstrated by Hamilton v Verstappen.
That said, the main cherry on the top, the most important ingredient to making a great rivalry is an on track incident with enough ambiguity that evokes passionate debates about who was at fault. Take Senna vs Prost at Suzuka in 1989, or perhaps Alonso vs Hamilton at Hungary in 2007. It is incidents like this, so simple, yet audacious in nature, that flick a special button and turn the battle into a great one.
A great battle Alonso vs Hamilton was rekindled in Hungary this season – the rivalry had just enough controversy, on track action and emotion to make it greater than many!
Raw emotion – the final piece of the jigsaw
What is that special button that Hamilton v Verstappen has pressed, you ask? It’s the button of emotion. On track controversies like what we saw between Verstappen and Hamilton brought out that passion, got fans and team members as emotionally invested as Schumacher’s crash at Jerez in 1997 did, because of that grey area.
That grey area is essential to high quality storytelling. We all, including yours truly, like to pretend that we are racing experts who always know what the right lines and maneuvers should be, regardless of whether we have raced for a single lap, in real life or on the simulator. I often find myself guilty, much like a vast majority of F1 fans of loving to air our opinions to our friends about marginal steering movements or how many millimeters X driver was ahead of Y. Yet, in actuality a vast majority of us are unaware because we have never been in a situation of that kind.
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We are at the mercy of the voices of the experts, where there may be a divide. Humans go out searching for approval of their opinions – with such a complex crash, credible experts might be on opposite sides too. How convenient is it, that we tend to believe in the one that favours our favourite and use it to defend our take? At the root of it, only a handful can actually claim from experience, yet everyone feels credible to have an educated opinion. This is what any sporting league would dream of!
This is what makes a good rivalry great! Incidents and moments like this have just enough intensity, controversy and ambiguity to tickle our emotions, make us feel like experts and get us riled up.
The real winner
With their big blow up at Silverstone in a crash 3 years in the making, the Hamilton v Verstappen battle has come very close to greatness, to a stage where personal emotions and vendetta could very well be on the line for the first time since 2016. Lost fans have returned, new fans have joined in and existing ones have seen the emotional pendulum swing harder than ever!
