{"id":64968,"date":"2026-01-22T12:11:05","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T12:11:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/?p=64968"},"modified":"2026-01-22T12:12:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T12:12:18","slug":"verstappen-2025-fan-support-maybe-realise-who-i-really-am","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/verstappen-2025-fan-support-maybe-realise-who-i-really-am\/","title":{"rendered":"Verstappen on 2025 fan support: “Maybe they realise who I really am”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Max Verstappen thinks his surge in support in late 2025 came from fans realising “who I really am”.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Away from the ‘Orange Army’, the four-time world champion has often been a divisive figure among Formula 1 fans.<\/p>\n

Mostly, Verstappen’s critics came from his aggressive driving style, the fallout from 2021 and dominance in the years since.<\/span><\/p>\n

At its worst, the Red Bull driver was occasionally booed by fans on the podium after romping to another win.<\/p>\n

\"Verstappen,<\/p>\n

Last year, however, McLaren became the team to beat, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri leading the way.<\/p>\n

And Max’s late and ultimately failed charge to claim a fifth world championship saw him become the fan favourite.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, surprising,” he told Red Bull’s Talking Bulls\u00a0<\/em>podcast on the change in reaction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think, naturally, of course, with an underdog role, people will start to support you a bit more, but I guess maybe they finally start to realise who I am, who I really am.”<\/p>\n

Verstappen’s no-nonsense approach has also earned him many fans and a few detractors, but the 29-year-old insists he wouldn’t change anything.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, it works for me. It\u2019s how I want to be, I don\u2019t try to be a fake person in the paddock or whatever, that\u2019s just not how I am,” he added.<\/p>\n

\"Verstappen\"<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially, of course, in F1, when you have a lot of success, or in general, you\u2019re doing well, it\u2019s easy to maybe forget about that.<\/div>\n
“But that\u2019s why it\u2019s very important to always have the most important people around you that actually do tell you if you\u2019re maybe acting a bit out or weird.<\/div>\n
“I am very lucky that, of course, I have a great family, but also really good friends.\u201d<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Max Verstappen thinks his surge in support in late 2025 came from fans realising “who I really am”. Away from the ‘Orange Army’, the four-time world champion has often been a divisive figure among Formula 1 fans. Mostly, Verstappen’s critics came from his aggressive driving style, the fallout from 2021 and dominance in the years<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":64969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[341,295,294,354],"class_list":{"0":"post-64968","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-max-verstappen","11":"tag-red-bull"},"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64972,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64968\/revisions\/64972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}