Max Verstappen has mostly been the better driver no matter where he drove in Formula 1. The Dutchman always tended to beat his teammates and is still doing it very ferociously. It’s believed that Red Bull and Verstappen make a deadly combination and his former boss Franz Tost has supported this notion. Recently to put an end to all the arguments, the former AlphaTauri boss cited how no driver can beat Verstappen in a team.
Tost told F1 Insider, “He is still not at the limit and will get even better. No driver who is or will be his teammate will ever get beyond the role of a number 2 driver.”
Notably, the Dutchman faced five different drivers in his F1 career and was able to beat all five of them. He made his debut in Toro Rosso in 2015 under Tost, where he beat his then-teammate Carlos Sainz. Sainz had 18 points at the end of the season, whereas Verstappen had 49.
The 26-year-old jumped to Red Bull a year later and this was one of two years he was the inferior force in the team. He was facing the prime Daniel Ricciardo and ended up being the second-best driver in the team till 2017. However, from 2018 the rise of Verstappen began.
The Dutch driver then beat Ricciardo, Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, and Sergio Perez by a huge margin in all these years till 2023. In the recently concluded season, Verstappen defeated Perez by claiming 19 wins to Perez’s 2.
The three-time world champion’s point haul was a massive 575, whereas his P2 teammate had only 285 despite driving the same car. All in all, Verstappen indeed has been the number one driver in the team and can very well remain so. Nevertheless, Lewis Hamilton recently spoke on Verstappen’s dominance in the team and this ended up being a controversial topic.
How did Lewis Hamilton’s stance about Max Verstappen dominating at Red Bull create controversy?
Lewis Hamilton recently stated that Max Verstappen did not face strong enough opposition to match him in Red Bull. Contrastingly, the Briton cited how he faced the likes of champions like Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button, Nico Rosberg etc.
Replying to this comment, Verstappen took a dig at the seven-time world champion. He said that the Mercedes driver might have been a little jealous about his success [34 wins in two seasons] off late. The Dutchman also dissed his 2021 rival about how most of his ex-teammates finished ahead of him in Monza qualifying.
Interestingly, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko had other ideas as he believed Hamilton was one of the drivers who could give Verstappen tough competition at Red Bull. Marko cited that only Alonso or Hamilton had the ingredients to match the reigning champ. This came amid the seven-time world champion’s links to the Austrian team.
This was another interesting episode where Hamilton and Red Bull boss Christian Horner had multiple takes on how the Mercedes driver was allegedly ready to join Red Bull. In the end, Hamilton snubbed the rumors categorically.
