On Top of the World [Max Verstappen - Book 3]

12.5

Elodie and Max to stop doing press together?
Fans of the former teammates have led a social media campaign for the FIA to stop forcing Max and Elodie to do press conferences together as we go into the new season. A noticeable trend emerged whereby they were always put into the same press conference no matter what to everyone's surprise. Elodie and Max have never once interacted with one another, even when the conferences have been small and just the two of them and fans have asked the FIA to stop forcing drama between the two drivers who are clearly not comfortable around one another.
It's unknown whether the FIA will listen to the fans pleads to look after the driver's mental health as we move into the next season, beginning in a week's time.

The New Season of Drive to Survive underwhelms fans
The new season of the Netflix documentary, DTS, frustrated fans as they portrayed the series being centralised around the former Red Bull teammates, Max Verstappen and Elodie Carter. All advertisement for the series was focused on the two, their fallout and the championship battle but the season didn't even have one whole episode dedicated to the championship fight, let alone the rest of the battle off track or on. Instead focusing on Mercedes and Red Bull.
Fans felt like the false advertisement was frustrating and are annoyed at Netflix's explanation that neither driver spoke much on the topic so they didn't have anything to cut together to make into a whole episode.
Totally missing the fans point on the whole position of false advertisement.

Elodie Carter stages a strong first week
Elodie Carter wowed everyone in Bahrain by dominating the first race of the season to the shock and surprise of everyone, she finished the race 34 seconds ahead of her teammate and 36 ahead of former teammate Max Verstappen in a return to form that was reminiscent of her form in 2023 and 2024.
When asked about it later her teammate, Lando Norris, said that he was surprised there was such a gap between them as he felt good and comfortable in the car but was not able to get close to the lap times that Elodie churned out consistently on any compound of tyre. Max Verstappen, when asked, said he wasn't surprised. "When Elodie is synced up to the car, no one can get close. I know that from my own personal experience," while the words might seem petty, the driver seems very at ease and happy with his own performance and some might even dare to say happy for his old teammate...when this was pointed out by the interviewer he shrugged his shoulders. "We saw her click with the car towards the end of last year, if I can beat her and Mercedes this year then I will know that I beat her when she's at top form...that means more."
The competitive spirit is clearly alive within both, when someone repeated those words back to Elodie she just smiled and shrugged. "He won't be able to beat me when I'm in top form. If he beats me, then I'm not in top form."
Those are fighting words and we can't wait to see how this season evolves.

Verstappen and Carter made up?
The former teammates were seen talking before, during and after the press conference leading into the second race weekend.
The pair, whom everyone is now used to being estranged from one another after a very tense season last year, were talking and even seen laughing with friend and other driver Charles Leclerc who seemed distinctly unstressed compared to normal when placed with the two drivers.
Carter stormed to a second victory in a row, this time by a slightly smaller margin than in the first week ahead of Verstappen, ultimately taking the race win with an enviable late braking manoeuvre to take the lead with two laps to go and pulling away immediately from the Dutch driver who didn't even seem angry with himself or his team, claiming similarly to the week before that "when Elodie is confident in the car and having a good day then she's as good as anyone. Unfortunately for me and the team, today was one of those days for her but I'm not worried. We managed to close the gap a lot between last week and this week and so I think that we can get the win soon."