His room, the garage, the pit lane. I read that three times in Max Verstappen’s interview with De Telegraaf, and I looked around me. At my place in Genk, in Limburg, the room is seventy per cent cockpit. The garage is the cockpit. The pit lane is the reset button. Same floor plan, only more compact.
He says the world of F1 is getting busier and busier: “It’s like a zoo.” Often it is no longer possible to have a quick chat with someone, and even in his own team’s hospitality areas, many guests want something from him. He gives them credit for good intentions. He just wants to be able to rest without being pestered all the time.
I get pestered too. In the lobby, after an online race, three people ask me for my Pouhon setup. I give it to them. They beat me. I lose the lobby’s respect. It’s a crowding problem, on my scale.
I measured my own rest zone again this morning: between the seat and the bed, there’s one metre twenty. That’s my only delta of the day, and it’s also the distance nobody crosses, except my mother with the laundry. He has a whole garage, with people in it. The paddock, for me, is an unmodelled variable: I’ve never set foot in it. Spa is an hour’s drive, and on Sunday there’s the race.
What I like is his conclusion. He knows it comes with the territory: the more you perform and the more you’ve achieved, the more people expect of you. He sees it as a good sign.
One metre twenty between work and rest. At post 14, that’s the length of the camping chair.
Me, in the lobby, the more I perform, the more people ask for my setup. So that’s a good sign too. In theory.
It’s true, we checked: RacingNews365.
