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Max Verstappen could have won five world championships this season and have one of the greatest sports recoveries of all time.

But sitting at Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina circuit on Thursday, as the sun sets over the harbour around which he and McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will settle this year’s championship, he is calmness personified.

Verstappen covers every aspect of the contest that will take place this weekend in a 20-minute interview with BBC Sport.

He acknowledges that he is probably in his rivals ‘ heads, discusses his intense competitiveness, admits it went too far earlier this year, and explains why.

He considers Red Bull’s recovery this year, their mid-season change, and the fact that he considered moving elsewhere over the summer.

He’s matter-of-fact, down-to-earth, good-humoured, and straight to the point. And he succinctly summarizes himself.

There has been nothing not good enough about Verstappen of late. He was 70 points behind Norris and 104 points off the championship lead eight races ago.

Now, Verstappen is 12 points behind the Briton, and four ahead of Piastri, as they head into the first three-way Formula 1 title showdown in a season finale for 15 years.

He claims that despite his mentality going into the weekend, “it’s still not in my control, but there is a fight.”

Winning the title would be “nice”, he acknowledges, but if he does not achieve that, he says: “I’m not going to be crying in a corner.

It’s irrelevant whether we come in first, second, or third. I know that I had a really good season, and that’s fine. We haven’t been the quickest team in general, I am aware of.

At the very next race, the Italian Grand Prix at the beginning of September, Red Bull found new performance, but even so Verstappen is in the mix only because McLaren have begun to stumble, their drivers have tripped over themselves and made mistakes, and the team the same.

I ask him what he thinks has been the key factor, whether it’s Red Bull’s recovery, the fact that the two drivers have made mistakes, or the fact that Norris and Piastri haven’t performed as well as he did.

“All of it”, Verstappen says.

Verstappen in extremis has represented the last eight races. He has taken five wins, a second place and two thirds.

McLaren Racing’s CEO, Zak Brown, compared him to a “threatless” horror film character who keeps terrifying his victims.

Does he realise that sounds like a tacit admission that he is in his rivals ‘ heads, they’re effectively scared of him?

He replies, “Yeah, but I don’t pay much attention to it.” I don’t waste my energy on that. Here, I put my stuff together. I know that when I’m with the team, when I jump in the car, I drive it as fast as I can.

Verstappen has earned this imposing position. He is viewed as an irresistible force throughout Formula One for a good reason, largely due to how many races he has competed in that manner.

” I know that I will never give up, “he says”. I am aware of how to make the most of it.

“Can I be beaten on the day? For certain. I mean, everyone can be beaten on the day, but can you beat me 24 races in a year? No . That’s something that if you want to fight for a championship, that is something that you have to keep up, and that’s the hardest bit”.

He credits his father, Jos, who famously trained him to drive in the F1 from the age of three, with instilling this level of consistency, saying, “It probably has been drilled in me since I was a child.

But the level he is currently at “comes a bit with experience”.

Verstappen continues, “My mentality has always been the same.” That’s why earlier on in my career, sometimes I also got a bit frustrated because I knew what to do, it was just not possible. Or because of a number of factors, I was able to accurately demonstrate it, but I was certain that it was present throughout.

” But of course, up until 2021, I never had a car that could fight also for the championship, so then it’s impossible to really show that. “

He claims that his years of working in this capacity will “probably help me a little more stay calm.”

Verstappen had no idea where he would end up in the summer. Red Bull seemed unable to get out of a competitive slump that dated back a year, and Verstappen was talking to Mercedes about a possible move.

Christian Horner, the team’s principal, was fired in the middle of it all, and Laurent Mekies took over.

Verstappen says:” The first thing that I want to say is that I always had a great relationship with Christian. And yet, many people still think highly of what he has accomplished for the team.

“When I joined, Christian was already there for a much longer time. People will never forget the victory we won in 2021, the emotions, and the night that followed.

” The team was in a tough time already in ‘ 24 a bit. And it didn’t really seem to get better. And at one point, the shareholders wanted a different direction.

It’s a “big shock,” according to the reviewer, of course. But at the same time, when you look at other sports, when sometimes a team has been functioning for a very long time, very well, and then at one point it’s not, and there’s not really also a clear direction out of it, sometimes management makes a big change”.

Verstappen refers to Mekies as “very different personality.” I get along very well with Laurent as well. He plays a little bit more technical role in the team. And you can see that probably in other teams as well that that has been a bit the trend. As a team boss, people are playing a bit more technical role.

Was that key to the improvement in the car’s performance?

It was only a couple of weeks after Horner’s departure that Verstappen finally committed to staying at Red Bull next season, after talks with Mercedes.

What kind of concern did he have for a move?

“For me, it’s not only about F1”, he says. There must be many things in place for me to make a change. Future roles, stuff like that. So, of course, if I ever had to make a change, it would be significant for me because, let’s say, that’s not something that is simple to replicate, let’s say, like that.

” The change, if I would ever make one, it’s not only because I need a faster F1 car or I need a difference in the environment. A lot of my F1 career and my non-F1 work must come together in a cohesive package.

So it wasn’t really something you were seriously considering?

Verstappen claims he is “quite surprised” to be entering the final race with a chance of winning the title despite Red Bull’s recovery and McLaren’s fallibility.

” Normally, when you’re that far down – and of course also up until that point, it was just going up, up, up, right? So, there is no way at the time that we could close the gap or at least close it in some way.

“But we did, and that’s something that we’re very proud of. And I’m content to continue fighting until the end. It also keeps it exciting, I guess, for everyone that it is not only between the two drivers of one team. When there is a second team involved, that always makes sense.

If he lands the championship, he says, it will not be his most satisfying season. He chooses 2023, the year he won a record 19 of 22 races for that.

“This has been a really good season, probably my best season, but it has also been frustrating at times because we were not quick enough”.

He still acknowledges what he has accomplished.

“You always try to improve as a driver, you try to be more all-round”, he says. I’ve been happy because I dragged some outcomes out of it that probably weren’t realistic or feasible on some weekends.

He does this, he says, “by always trying to look for details, trying to just learn about the car, learn about yourself, do a lot of things also outside of F1.

The Spanish Grand Prix, which his team installed in retrospect as the wrong kind of tires under a late safety car, left him with his temper as he lost his temper.

He found himself under attack and ended up seemingly deliberately hitting George Russell’s Mercedes, which earned him a 10-second penalty and dropped him from fifth place to 10th. This weekend, those nine points might have been useful.

This is the point at which he makes his remark about being” too driven”.

He responds, “I’m on the hard tyres, my race is gone, and you just let everyone by,” with a simple reply: “I’m on the hard tyres, my race is gone.” But that’s not how I am.

“Of course, it did not like what came out of it. But at the same time, it’s because I always, when I’m in the car, I give it 100%. I can’t just sit back and watch the 95%, which only adds to the complexity.

” Of course, when you look back at it, it was not ideal. However, you can also take lessons from them.

It was a sense of injustice or unfairness, he admits, that triggered it.

He claims that doing something like that is “quite difficult, probably.” We just want to do our best race and the other things are not really in our control. “

I’m curious to know whether he views gamesmanship or even dirty tricks like those Michael Schumacher occasionally admitted to using.

” I think that’s quite extreme, “he says”. I’m not thinking about it at the moment.

And if it turns out that he cannot win it, which of his rivals would he prefer to see as champion?