Verstappen reveals illness after F1 season: ‘Travelling doesn’t help’

Max Verstappen has revealed that he was “very sick” following the conclusion of this year’s Formula 1 campaign.

The Dutchman enjoyed a highly dominant year, winning 19 out of the 22 races staged en route to his third World Championship.

His season was capped off by another race victory in Abu Dhabi, the fourth year in a row that he has prevailed at the season finale at the Yas Marina Circuit.

But speaking on the Talking Bull podcast, Verstappen revealed that he fell ill after placing a lid on his season.

“After Abu Dhabi, I was very ill for a couple of days, so I’m still recovering from that,” Verstappen said.

“Plus then of course, [there was] the travelling, so that didn’t really help.

“[Now] I will have two really nice weeks where I can just switch off, not look at my emails and F1-related stuff.”

Verstappen jokingly revealed that he ignored emails relating to next season from race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase.

“Already, to be honest, I have to apologise to my engineer because you sent me three emails relating to next year, and I didn’t respond.

“I saw him today so I made up for it! You know our relationship, it’s a bromance.”

Verstappen enjoyed what is statistically the most dominant season in F1 history as he ended the year with an 86.4% win-to-race ratio – beating Alberto Ascari’s record from 1952.

“I’m definitely looking forward to taking a bit of time off. But I felt [in] Abu Dhabi when I was standing on the podium, it did hit me a little bit with the achievements this year.