Well, this was peachy. Max Verstappen's wagon was fixed good this time, wasn't it? Surely he couldn't turn another Grand Prix into the Tournament of Roses parade THIS TIME, could he?
Over there in Belgium Sunday, see, he was buried in 14th on the grid at the start, with a whole pile of sophisticated machinery and skilled drivers ahead of him. Not a chance he would run away with this one. Not a chance he --
Wait, what?
Ah, crap. He did.
The lights blinked off and by the end of eight laps, Verstappen was already third. By lap 12 he was in the lead. By the end, he was 18 seconds clear of Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez, who started 12 places ahead of him.
It was Verstappen's ninth win in 14 Grand Prix this year, and he's now 93 points ahead of his teammate in the title chase. With eight races left, you can hand him the big trophy right now -- a short trip, because he won the title last year, too.
He's just too good. He's just ... too ... good.
He's so good, in fact, that he's turned the sport into Lewis Hamilton Revisited, or perhaps Michael Schumacher Revisited, or perhaps even Jim Clark Revisited if you want to reach back that far. In other words, F1 is again the most easily predictable sporting proposition since Hulk Hogan was throwing around the Iron Sheik.
This is not exactly the best thing for F1, although F1 fans are a different breed who don't seem to mind utter dominance. It's more about the cutting edge technology of the cars for them, and they'll celebrate just as hard if their guy makes a podium as they would had he won. And it does make the job easier for the deadline grunts in F1 pressrooms.
F1 journalist (leaning back): Well, I've got my lede.
Other F1 journalist: What? But the race hasn't even started yet! What's your lede?
F1 journalist: "Max Verstappen, blah-blah, blah-blah, won the Grand Prix of Blah-Blah-Blah Sunday."
Other F1 journalist: Stealing!
Now that's peachy.
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