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What are his worries or anxieties? “Nothing any more”, he says. “Initially, when I got into Formula One, what worried me was: will I get a car that allows me to show what I can do out there? Luckily, I got into that position. If it all goes downhill now, it’s okay – I’ve already done everything I want to do in Formula One.” He doubles and triples down on this. He says he is more relaxed in the sport now than he ever has been. “Because I won my first [world] title and then my second so, for me, I’ve won everything in Formula One that I could win.” Some would say that most athletes who become repeat world champions manage to stay at the top by setting new goals. But Verstappen replies that this doesn’t apply to him because he has already achieved what he wanted: “There are no new goals in Formula One, because once you have achieved everything, that is it.” So what it next for the now three-time champion? He says: “It depends how long you want to go.” He had hinted at this before the 2023 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, when he commented on the relentless schedule of 23 races a year. He says: “You are doing so many races, at one point you have to question yourself: is it worth it or not?” This is interesting because Verstappen was raised by his father, Jos, to follow him into F1 and then to doing anything to get to where Jos didn’t, which is the top. “Doing anything” are his own words, and doing anything was not an approach that always won him friends. “I never started my career to be liked,” he says — which seems a typical Verstappen comment: honest, upfront, self-assured. But how can you even consider leaving when your life has been engineered to get to the place you have just arrived at? We ask him about the history, particularly his father’s Benetton days, and his holidays and childhood friendships with the Schumacher family. “I remember a few holidays,” he says. “I was quite small; I didn’t know he [Michael Schumacher] was seven-times world champion. He was more like Uncle Michael walking around. He was very nice, easygoing. Simple. People think that everything is always magic and there is a lot of glitter and glamour around, but it’s just family people together.” Photo by Gongora/NurPhoto 132 | Simply Abu Dhabi