Max Verstappen's 2024 F1 title win rated his best by 2x podium finisher

Max Verstappen's former teammate and 2x podium finisher Alex Albon feels that his 2024 title triumph is his best out of all championship wins. The Dutch driver was on the front again in 2024 when Red Bull was pushed suddenly to the back foot and had no idea why the car was not balanced.

The team had started the season on a positive note as Max Verstappen dropped just one race until Miami, and even that was due to a reliability issue. The race in Miami was, however, a pivotal moment, as it was in this race that McLaren brought its first major upgrade and catapulted to the top.

From that race onwards, both Red Bull and McLaren went in opposite directions when it comes to performance trajectory. While the Woking-based squad continued to improve, the Austrian team struggled to find the sweet spot on the car. This became an even bigger worry as Lando Norris started to close the gap to Max Verstappen in the championship.

In the end, Max Verstappen's brilliance and overall ability to just maximize every result meant that he was able to seal the title. Talking to RacingNews365, Alex Albon was questioned which Verstappen title triumph was better, to which the Thai driver picked the 2024 win, as this was the one where one could see the skill involved. He said:

"I think it was his best one. His 2021 year was special but it was a dogfight, whereas this one...it was nice in a way because I felt you could see the skill Max has, not just in terms of one-lap performance or whatever, but also race craft, weekend management, all those kind of things."

He added:

"When you saw the car wasn't quite there, he was still putting away good results, not letting Lando close the gap throughout the year. That, to me, was impressive."

Max Verstappen's 2024 was a bit more tactical

The 2021 title win for Max Verstappen was more about how he had to battle Lewis Hamilton every race weekend. The title did get decided on the last lap of the season but according to Alex Albon, 2021 was a bit more of a dogfight compared to 2024 which was a bit more tactical. He explained:

"You can see, in some ways, there was experience and a maturity, whereas, in 2021, it was a bit more raw, and you could see that against Lewis, it was a raw dogfight, whereas this was a bit more tactical. It felt like he was seeing things from a bigger picture, but still executing and having great quali laps and whatnot, so it was a very strong year. [I was] Really impressed."

He added:

"If he'd had no competition, you wouldn't have seen that, so it was nice for him to get that competition so people could actually see what he's capable of."

Heading into the 2025 F1 season, Max Verstappen is now already a 4x world champion. It would be interesting to see how the Dutch driver approaches this year as he could go level with Juan Manuel Fangio.