Max Verstappen has rules.

They’re not written down in a notebook, or taped to the inside of his locker like a school timetable. There’s no neat bullet list tucked in a phone note somewhere.

They’re invisible, but everyone in the paddock knows them whispered between team members, passed along in quiet, amused warnings from one driver to the next. They’re as much a part of Max as the way he straps into his car with methodical precision, as his unblinking, unreadable stare in the media pen, as the cold efficiency with which he moves through a race weekend.

The rules are simple: no unnecessary talking, no pointless lingering, no messy entanglements. Max’s life is a straight line from start lights to chequered flag, and he keeps it that way. No detours. No distractions.

He’s a man built of sharp edges and closed doors. The sort who slips in and out of the paddock without leaving a trace, like tyre smoke that vanishes before you can touch it. He doesn’t do warmth. He doesn’t do vulnerability. And he most certainly doesn’t do friendship.

Max Verstappen isn’t here to make friends.