It duly arrived in a staggering sequence of events. Mercedes had been much quicker the whole race and Christian Horner, Red Bull’s team principal, admitted live on television that they needed “a miracle”. Until Nicholas Latifi crashed his Williams car with just five of the 58 laps of the race left, it had looked as if Hamilton would deny Verstappen and make history by winning his eighth driver’s title. The grand prix and the championship had been blown apart by the decision of Michael Masi, the race director, to allow a one-lap lottery between two great drivers who had been fighting for supremacy all season. The new Red Bull car, RB18, was unveiled on Wednesday afternoon but, first, Verstappen takes a fresh spin around the final lap of the race that brought such a gripping Formula One season to its tumultuous conclusion. But now, on a tranquil afternoon in Milton Keynes, he is ready to slip back into the cockpit.

After the elation, as well as the bitter controversy and angry appeals from Hamilton’s Mercedes team, Verstappen has needed time to recover.

Max Verstappen has been quiet since stepping back from the wild drama and surreal shootout of the last lap of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in which he overtook Lewis Hamilton and won his first world championship in December.

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