Max Verstappen world champion

Everything you thought during the race

We had set the alarm because today could very well be the day when Max Verstappen would become world champion for the second time. It was rumbling and banging at Viaplay. Is this the day when… Here Max could just climb the podium later… I always get a bit anxious about these kinds of assumptions. ‘It brings nothing’, as my beloved's Amsterdam grandfather would say. I immediately think of that wrong switch by Sven Kramer in the ten kilometers during the Olympic Games in Vancouver, or the fable of the hare and the tortoise. It ain’t over till it’s over, I’ll just say, and by now we know there are a thousand factors (I mention an empty tank) that can influence the race and that are beyond Max Verstappen's control.

So there we were, sitting upright in bed. An extra pillow in the back, heart rate slightly elevated, breathing audible. Because today it could just happen.

1. It's raining: great
Because Max is a Dutch boy and the rain that we so often curse is welcome at one moment: during a race. Because that's where the men are separated from the boys: where the others clench their buttocks, Max just gives it a little more gas.
2. It can also rain too hard
What fountains behind every car during the warm-up lap.
3. Max is medium away
But what a hero; he simply knows no fear and just nudges his nose in front of Leclerc's. Could it really happen today? Don't say it. Don't think it.
4. What a battlefield, and that within two laps.
5. The race is halted, we understand that.
6. Ah, Max is having a good time with Kelly.
True love, you can see it right away.
7. Are we going, are we not?
8.  See 7
9. See 8
10. Yes, we are about to start, but there are so few laps left that Max cannot become world champion.
11. Well, unless Leclerc doesn't finish second, but third.
12. Oh, let it go, it will just be a party next time.
13. Did Max just finish?
14. The camera is still on Leclerc and Perez while Max silently crosses the finish line with a half-minute difference.
15. Would Perez manage to overtake Leclerc? Then Max would become world champion again thanks to his buddy. Remember last year when Perez played a solid game of catch-me-if-you-can with Lewis Hamilton?
16. No, it's incredibly sweet of Perez, but it's not going to happen anymore.
17. Or will it?
18. No, really not.
19. Or will it?
20. Okay, guys, calm down, let it go, it's just not going to happen today.
21. Leclerc receives a penalty.
22. Could it be after all?
23. No, no, no.
24. Perez is now second.
25. So is Max then…
26. No, no, no. He just won. We would have been very happy about that otherwise. Don't be so greedy.
27. He is world champion.
28. Not really.
29. I'm going to exercise.
30. Phone call.
31. Max. Is. World champion.

Well, it might have been a bit of an implosion and not such a storybook victory as last year, but still.

Max, you are a king. I hope you are now enjoying a few gin and tonics with Kelly and that you treat us to your magnificent talent and courage a few more times.