Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen: the best of enemies

Max Verstappen’s former performance engineer, Bradley Scanes, has revealed one critical “power trip” tactic the driver used to employ to annoy Lewis Hamilton.

Verstappen — annoyed at how long it took Hamilton to get ready for the cool-down room or the press conference — began to change his full outfit, thus forcing Hamilton to wait for him.

Max Verstappen’s key power play over Lewis Hamilton

Formula 1 is a sport of fine tolerance and minute differences, but it’s also a major playing field for mental games.

After all, one’s on-track performance can often only be enhanced by a little off-track gamesmanship designed to irk a rival in a way that can net you even the slightest tinge of performance.

Back in 2021, as it became clear that Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton would be the primary title rivals for the drivers’ championship, it was clear that mentality would be a decisive factor in determining who would win and who would lose.

By that point, Hamilton was a master: Having wrapped up a record-matching seven World Championship titles, he had triumphed over plenty of stiff competition time and again to arrive at the top.

Verstappen, though, was looking to topple his rival, and his former performance engineer, Bradley Scanes, revealed one critical way in which Verstappen would do this.

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Speaking on the High Performance Podcast, Scanes revealed that Verstappen transformed his own annoyance at Hamilton into a cheeky ploy to make Hamilton annoyed at him.

“One of the funniest things would be the time it would take to get ready,” Scanes revealed.

But before he continued, he backed up to explain, “So when I first started working with Max, the top three go into the cool-down room after the race, or after qualifying there is a little area where you go.

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“And Lewis would always take a long time to get ready.

“He’d want to change fully out of his kit and get his hair done, put his own clothes on, whereas Max would just change his suit or go as he is to the press conference.

“As it progressed, we started changing every part of the kit, and you could just see Max taking his time.

“We started changing the full kit, and the flip was Max really started to take his time, so Lewis had to wait for him.

“It was just a power trip thing to say ‘We’re not waiting for you anymore, the baton has been passed and we’re taking over from here’.”

It’s a very subtle power play, but one that could have major repercussions. After all, Hamilton was in the midst of his dominant championship run, perhaps feeling as though he’d earned the right to take his time before moving from one post-race location to the next.

But Verstappen was still young and precocious, determined to challenge for a little respect of his own. And considering how the 2021 season ultimately played out, it seems as if it was the best move he could have made.