Max Verstappen rubbished Daniel Ricciardo’s ‘Overtake of the Year’ award given by the FIA in the 2018 Chinese GP.
Max Verstappen has had a fair share of ridiculously good overtakes. The Dutchman is an aggressive driver who loves to make a late-breaking dive-bomb on the inside of his rivals.
Verstappen is unapologetic about his elbows-out approach to racing. But even his late-breaking skills are nowhere close to his former teammate, Daniel Ricciardo.
Ricciardo was infamous for his late-breaking manoeuvres during his time at Red Bull. The Aussie would race wheel-to-wheel with the likes of Sebastian Vettel, Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton and other exceptional drivers with ease.
As his rivals would approach a corner, they would break to make a smooth turn. And Ricciardo would use this as an advantage, making a swooping lunge out of nowhere.
The Aussie once overtook 3 cars in a single corner in the 2017 Azerbaijan GP. But according to the FIA, his best move was in China in 2018.
In China 2018, Ricciardo was following Mercedes’s Valtteri Bottas who was leading the race. And in lap 45 of the race, the Aussie used the slipstream and made a dive on the inside of turn 6.
Bottas was unable to defend Ricciardo. He claimed the 6th victory of his F1 career. He finished almost nine seconds, after starting sixth on the grid and set the fastest lap of the race.
With this move, he claimed the race lead and went on to win the race. And subsequently, this move was awarded ‘Overtake of the Year’ by the FIA.
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Watch Max Verstappen’s witty response
In an interview, Max Verstappen was asked about his favourite overtake in F1. The interviewer asked if he agree’s with FIA in calling his then teammate, Daniel Ricciardo’s overtake a worthy contender.
The Dutchman said he cannot recollect what his favourite overtake was. But he says, it will certainly not be an overtake on Valtteri Bottas in typical Dutch humour!
He said, “It’s definitely not this one. An overtake on Bottas can’t be the overtake of the year.” He said the Finn gave too much space to Ricciardo and was exploited.
Bottas has been criticised for his lack of defensive driving capabilities. And in typical ‘Max’ fashion, Verstappen just annihilated the former Mercedes driver in a matter of seconds.
