Lights Out: Max Verstappen's special treatment

What has three wheels and more lives than conjoined twin cats? That's right - Max Verstappen. Red Bull's title "project" has spent most of 2018 resembling something out of Wacky Races, with spins slides and shunts ruining his and his team's prospects. Don't bet on it coming back to haunt him, though...

Daniil Kvyat's career didn't die for this.

The Verstappen we were promised, and occasionally see in glimpses, has the power to be truly transformative for Formula 1.

But the Verstappen we see most weeks - nearly all weeks this year - is closer to a clumsy oaf, and one that can't see how he's going wrong.

The Dutchman shrugged off any suggestion of going the way of Kvyat after his latest ricket, placing his racing line six inches inside the Armco barrier out of the swimming pool complex in Monaco, before taking a subsequent, and terminal to his Saturday, trip into more metal.

In order to get dropped by Red Bull in 2016, all Kvyat had to do was crash into Sebastian Vettel at the Russian Grand Prix. In fairness, this did also ruin his team-mate Daniel Ricciardo's race.

However, so far in 2018, Verstappen has: Impatiently damaged his car and spun chasing third place in Australia, over-eagerly crashed in Bahrain qualifying and then retired from the race in contact with Lewis Hamilton, lost a chance to win in Shanghai with a terrible overtake attempt on Hamilton before spinning himself and Vettel out of podium contention, weaved in front of Ricciardo to partly cause their Baku wipeout aaaaaaaand crashed in Monaco PRACTICE when Red Bull had by far the best car all weekend - as evidenced by Ricciardo's win with underpowered machinery.

And breathe...

It's some litany, but RBR are wedded to Verstappen until 2020 and have made it clear in the past that he is their long-term hope.

Niki Lauda - stirring his pot with more than one eye over the garden fence - says Verstappen "needs to change his brain". Maybe the three-time champion is right.

Verstappen certainly needs to use his current one better, or it could be curtains like Kvyat.

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If @DanielRicciardo needs a new manager, @LewisHamilton is first in the queue ????#MonacoGP pic.twitter.com/XAIghiwjXU — Formula 1 (@F1) May 28, 2018