“He has had no rivals”– Max Verstappen on Lewis Hamilton’s recent dominance and their latest bout for the 2021 championship.
Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton’s title race has intensified after the former’s win in the Monaco Grand Prix. Before this race, it appeared that Hamilton is slowly slipping away with the title, but now Verstappen leads the championship for the first time in his career.
Talking about his recent battles with Hamilton, he claims that for a while, the Briton didn’t have a rival against whom he could fight for the championship, making it a bit easy for him to win everything.
“As a team, we have to keep Mercedes under pressure if we want them to make mistakes,” said Verstappen. “Lewis has almost always beaten his teammate and that’s why I agree that he is one of the best drivers ever in F1.”
“But, Mercedes has been so dominant in recent years that he has had no rivals other than his own teammate. I hope that this will be one of those rare seasons where the battle will last until the end of the year. We can win the title with Red Bull and that’s why I race.”
Had to show them
Mercedes’ had a disastrous weekend, as they could only take home seven points after the race instead of a haul, and Red Bull took full advantage of it.
“We had to show on Sunday that we really compete in the battle for the world title, after having had a few races where we saw that we lost ground at Mercedes. From now on it is important to score every Sunday and make the least mistakes.”
“Until now we have been a team that has made fewer mistakes and that is why we are now at the top of the championship. I have learned to take second and third places when I don’t have the car to win.”
“Your instinct would always say to try win, which would make you take too big risks,” added Verstappen, who leads the F1 World Championship standings for the first time in his career after five rounds, ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.”
