{"id":580509,"date":"2026-04-03T23:16:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T23:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/580509\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T23:16:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T23:16:19","slug":"similarities-of-verstappen-and-senna-plus-a-stunning-letter-from-alpine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/580509\/","title":{"rendered":"Similarities of Verstappen and Senna. Plus: A stunning letter from Alpine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prime Tire Newsletter | This is The Athletic\u2019s F1 newsletter. Sign up here<\/a> to receive Prime Tire directly in your inbox twice a week during the season and weekly in the offseason.<\/p>\n

Welcome back to Prime Tire, where today I\u2019m considering an intriguing new parallel between two Formula 1 legends. Can you tell there\u2019s suddenly no racing to discuss?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m Alex, and with Luke Smith and Madeline Coleman enjoying well-earned breaks from covering the frantic opening to the 2026 campaign, it\u2019s just me in your inbox today.<\/p>\n

Manpower or Motor Power: Verstappen, Senna on side of driver skill<\/p>\n

Before Luke took time off, he produced this excellent piece on the topic of the moment:\u00a0Will Max Verstappen leave F1<\/a>\u00a0over his distaste for the new cars?<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been over Verstappen\u2019s criticisms of the new machines, and specifically the engines that power them, plenty here\u00a0in PT of late<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But Luke broke the debate down into the key combination of how Verstappen\u2019s contract\u00a0could now allow him to walk away from Red Bull after 2026\u00a0and that \u201cthere\u2019s too much else in\u00a0Verstappen\u2019s life<\/a>\u00a0that does give him the kind of joy that F1 doesn\u2019t appear to right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read Luke\u2019s piece here<\/a>. One of the first comments posted under the article really stood out to me.<\/p>\n

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

Because John P. has a point, which ties into a phrase I\u2019m hearing more and more as 2026 goes on: \u201cHistory does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.\u201d<\/p>\n

In F1, Mercedes is winning comfortably at the front after a change in engine design rules, just as it did the last time regulations changed in 2014.\u00a0And Verstappen\u2019s desire to\u00a0sample categories outside F1<\/a>\u00a0matches nicely with late Brazilian driver\u00a0Ayrton Senna<\/a>\u2019s career crossroads in the early 1990s, as John P. mentions.<\/p>\n

Specifically, how both drivers \u2014 each an F1 dominator, serial winner and uncompromising racer \u2014 have felt F1 isn\u2019t giving them their desired thrill.<\/p>\n

On a separate note at this stage, news dropped this week that Lance Stroll will\u00a0copy Verstappen<\/a>\u00a0in racing an Aston Martin GT3 sports car at the GT World Challenge Europe round from April 11-12 at the Paul Ricard track in France.<\/p>\n

But sticking to actually successful F1 drivers, this Verstappen\/Senna comparison stands out nicely nowadays. Particularly given these comments Senna made after he tested an IndyCar in December 1992:<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, F1 is so sophisticated, the computers do most of it for you,\u201d Senna said in the Jan. 7, 1993 issue of then-weekly British magazine \u201cAutosport.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019ve got a clever computer, you\u2019re in good shape. What I saw driving the IndyCar was that the man\u2019s input has tremendous value. It was something really exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

That sounds a lot like Verstappen\u2019s point that the F1 yo-yo racing featured so far this season is like \u201cplaying Mario Kart\u201d (in how the engine electrics systems mean passing is much easier, as the cars exchange being starved of energy in said systems).<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t the driver doing the hard work.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are boosting past, then you run out of battery the next straight, they boost past you again,\u201d Verstappen\u00a0pretty explosively said<\/a> after the Chinese GP. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s just a joke.<\/p>\n

Now, there are important differences in each case here.<\/p>\n

The F1 cars Senna was railing against were incredibly sophisticated \u2014\u00a0arguably the cleverest to ever feature in the championship.<\/p>\n

They had automatic gearboxes, traction control and auto-leveling suspension. These were driver aids \u2014 subsequently banned for 1994, just when Senna finally got his desired move away from the McLaren team he\u2019d made his F1 home between 1988-1993.<\/p>\n

Verstappen still wants things to work out with his own Red Bull. That much was clear when he said to the BBC\u00a0in the aftermath<\/a>\u00a0of the Suzuka race, where he finished eighth, that he still enjoys \u201cworking with my team. It\u2019s like a second family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luke\u2019s point about Verstappen\u2019s contract shows how the Dutchman and his camp were careful to include a clause where he could see how the pecking order looked around Red Bull\u2019s first attempt at building an F1 engine.<\/p>\n

But, following his 2021 title triumph, he couldn\u2019t have known when he signed his\u00a0deal through 2028<\/a>\u00a0just how little he\u2019d like the style of racing that engine \u2014 and those produced by Mercedes, Ferrari and Honda \u2014 would require.<\/p>\n

Senna got what he wanted in terms of driver aids disappearing, after a 1993 season when he was famously paid\u00a0$1 million per race<\/a>. And we can\u2019t ignore the potential for Verstappen\u2019s current gloomy position to be about benefitting him commercially too, somehow.<\/p>\n

But it seems F1 may have to make a similarly major pivot on car technology to keep its current drivers around post-2026, as it once did during Senna\u2019s career.<\/p>\n

More on this later.<\/p>\n

Alpine\u2019s Letter: Team condemns abuse, dismisses conspiracy\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was shaping up to be a quiet end to the week ahead of the Easter break, when all 11 teams get a long weekend off.\u00a0Then Alpine dropped a rather extraordinary 1,200-word \u201copen letter<\/a>\u201d to its fans, and those of F1 overall.<\/p>\n

Jaw and floor came close to meeting as it went\u00a0on<\/a>, and\u00a0on<\/a>,\u00a0and on<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A team moving to condemn social media abuse is, depressingly, nothing new in 2026.<\/p>\n

Headlines on the matter aren\u2019t even new to Alpine this year, after its former driver Jack Doohan said on the Netflix docuseries \u201cDrive to Survive\u201d that he\u00a0received death threats<\/a>\u00a0at the 2025 Miami GP.<\/p>\n

That was Doohan\u2019s final race before he was replaced in Alpine\u2019s lineup\u2014\u00a0alongside Pierre Gasly \u2014 by Franco Colapinto.<\/p>\n

And it was the incidents Colapinto was involved in with Haas drivers Esteban Ocon and Ollie Bearman in China and Japan, respectively this season, that triggered the following online hate of each and prompted Alpine\u2019s letter.<\/p>\n

The statement included the lines: \u201cThis isn\u2019t about one particular fanbase, it\u2019s about the entire F1 community coming together to enjoy the sport we all love and are passionate about.\u201d<\/p>\n

The gaps don\u2019t need to be very large between those lines to work out which fanbase Alpine is discussing.\u00a0After all, before the China race even finished, Colapinto\u2019s management already had to\u00a0put out a statement<\/a>\u00a0on X asking fans not to \u201csend hate messages or death threats to Esteban, his family, or the Haas F1 team.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that Alpine also said it made an \u201coversight\u201d in not calling out the abuse Ocon suffered \u201csooner\u201d and that it had to defend \u201cone of our own drivers\u201d from further abuse, around that already flying around over the Bearman crash, is what really stood out.<\/p>\n

Because Alpine dedicated over half\u00a0its letter<\/a>\u00a0to explaining the suggestions Colapinto was being sabotaged this season in favor of Gasly \u2014 who has made an excellent start and scored in all three events so far, to Colapinto\u2019s best result of 10th place in the Chinese GP \u2014 were \u201ccompletely unfounded.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve covered this\u00a0before in PT<\/a>, but F1 teams just\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0go about holding one driver or car back, when the highest points total from two entries combined in the constructors\u2019 championship is always the primary aim.<\/p>\n

You can read Alpine\u2019s full letter\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sport Crossover: Soccer players share F1 knowledge<\/p>\n

We love a sports crossover at\u00a0The Athletic, so here\u2019s two involving F1 and football (for my fellow Brits) or soccer (for our American readers).<\/p>\n

First up there was Darnell Furlong \u2014 a right-back player for English Football League Championship club Ipswich Town \u2014 showing\u00a0seriously impressive F1 knowledge<\/a>\u00a0by recognizing tracks being featured in a series of clips.<\/p>\n

At first I was smug to have exclaimed \u201cAustria, Monaco, Silverstone, Baku, Monza and Suzuka\u201d as the shots of those venues flashed by, just before Furlong did likewise.<\/p>\n

Then I realized he was going ON SOUND ALONE.<\/p>\n

A handy device isn\u2019t visible in the\u00a0clip Ipswich shared<\/a>, but I\u2019m taking Furlong at these words: \u201cI can just hear, like I can see.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it\u2019s slowing down, how much it\u2019s slowing down, the gap between the next corner.\u00a0I first noticed when I could do it at home and I\u2019d be doing something but not watching, and I\u2019d notice that (a driver had) done something \u2026 different. And I\u2019d turn around and (see) something\u2019s not quite on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Then on Wednesday, Haas turned up at the training ground of current Championship-leading club, Coventry City.<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t some jet-lag-curing excursion for the American team\u2019s F1 race crew once it arrived back at its nearby Banbury base in the UK from Suzuka. Instead, team boss Ayao Komatsu is a\u00a0long-time Coventry supporter<\/a>, after discovering the club through teammates when playing rugby as a student at (sort of) nearby Loughborough University in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

Komatsu had previously welcomed Coventry winger Tatsuhiro Sakamoto to Haas\u2019 Banbury facility, which Coventry turned into\u00a0this great video<\/a>\u00a0that charts both of their careers.<\/p>\n

Outside the Points<\/p>\n

\u2757\u00a0Madeline explained how the F1 Academy championship will\u00a0expand its schedules<\/a>\u00a0in Montreal and Austin to replace the races lost in\u00a0the cancellation<\/a>\u00a0of the 2026 Saudi Arabian GP, where the all-female driver series would\u2019ve been on the support bill.<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udfce And both Madeline and Luke produced our regular\u00a0post-GP mailbag<\/a>, where they answered questions after the Japanese race on topics including the\u00a0intra-Mercedes title battle<\/a> and what F1 can now do to try and fix its problematic new cars during the unexpected spring break.<\/p>\n

\u203c\ufe0f Also in the\u00a0mailbag<\/a>, a meeting on April 9 between key F1 stakeholders should reveal how things could change for the new engines heading to the next race in Miami in early May. I\u2019m sure Verstappen will be watching the outcome of this one closely.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udceb Love Prime Tire? Check out The Athletic\u2019s other newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Tire Newsletter | This is The Athletic\u2019s F1 newsletter. Sign up here to receive Prime Tire directly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-580509","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}