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Le Mans legend Jacky Ickx feels people who do not really know Max Verstappen have the wrong “opinion” of the four-time F1 champion, partly fuelled by his huge success.
Ickx is a big “admirer” of Verstappen and his skills behind the wheel, as he feels the 28-year-old has shown himself to be the exceptional racer of his generation. But he also has a partial relationship with Verstappen that has proven him to be different from the view others have.
Verstappen winning the F1 drivers’ championship four years on the spin, from 2021 to 2024, may have played a part in why some do not appreciate the Red Bull racer as much as others. He even took 51 Grand Prix wins from 92 races through the ground-effect era from 2022-25.
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Jacky Ickx thinks Max Verstappen is actually a ‘nice person’ despite what some may say
Verstappen broke records galore in 2024, as well, as he won his fourth title in a row, before McLaren’s Lando Norris ended his reign in 2025. Ickx thinks some fans may have got “tired” of seeing Verstappen dominate F1, and thus do not like the Dutchman for who he really is.
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Having developed a bit of a personal relationship with Verstappen, six-time Le Mans winner Ickx believes the Red Bull star is actually a “nice person” despite what some may think. He also thinks Verstappen showed why he is “so loved” by his fans with how he fought in 2025.
Ickx told RacingNews365: “Every decade there are good drivers, and then you have one who is exceptionally fast. That is Max’s situation. It is very special. He started very young and was always fast. There was a perfect combination of him, the car, and the engineers…
“But if someone keeps winning and you basically already know who will be champion, that can work against you in the long run. People get tired of seeing the same winner all the time. Yet Max, especially last year and the year before, has shown that he can still win even without the best car. That is why he is so loved and admired. He has proven his class…
“I am an admirer of Max. He always comes up to me when I see him. He knows who I am. That is nice, because he doesn’t have to. I don’t belong to his world. But I think he is a nice person. And if you get to know him a bit better, your opinion can change.”
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Verstappen nearly produced the greatest title comeback in F1 history last year, having faced a 104-point deficit to Oscar Piastri after 15 of the 24 rounds, only to finish two points behind Norris. He took advantage of Red Bull developing the RB21 to end 2025 with the fastest car.
But while Verstappen receives widespread praise for his positive moments, it is how he acts when things are not going his way that bothers his critics. Whenever Verstappen appears to feel genuine pressure, he will often go over the limits and never seem to then learn from it.
Last year saw Verstappen crash into George Russell in the 2025 Spanish Grand Prix as he did not like that Red Bull had told him to yield a position he took off the circuit. Russell saw the same petty version of Verstappen that Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc and Norris have.
Also, three months on from being questioned about his crash with Russell ultimately costing him the 2025 title at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Verstappen threw a journalist out of a press conference in Japan this year. Those incidents are part of the reason not everyone likes him.
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