Max Verstappen, who is vying for his fourth consecutive world title, began the new season in the same manner as last year. During his 143 laps, Verstappen easily got the fastest lap on the opening day of the 2024 pre-season testing. He finished the day 1.140s ahead of his closest competitor, Lando Norris. Even though the lap times in testing aren’t often an accurate indicator of performance, it’s safe to say that the day belonged to the Dutchman. Now, following Verstappen’s incredible performance, ex-F1 champion Damon Hill prayed to God for the three-time champion’s rivals.
While looking at the difference in pace, which was 1.5 seconds faster than the previous year, Hill claims that Verstappen is ” gloating.” Speaking about it, Hill wrote on his Twitter (now X) handle, “Oh God! He’s even Xing about it! He’s gloating. He’s taunting us. He knows. This year is going to be one long victory lap. You cannot begrudge anyone their success. All we can do is watch and admire.”
Oh God! He’s even Xing about it! He’s gloating. He’s taunting us. He knows. This year is going to be one long victory lap. You cannot begrudge anyone their success. All we can do is watch and admire. But, there is still a long long way to go. Anything can happen! #f1 #BahrainGP https://t.co/AoWZkccysi
— Damon Hill (@HillF1) February 22, 2024
Before this, Verstappen himself tweeted something about his carefree attitude after day 1 testing. The three-time champion remarked, “Great to be back in an F1 car again, good fun out there today.”
This calm reaction from Verstappen might be the reason for Hill to claim that the 26-year-old is taunting the F1 community. In short, Hill intends to say that Verstappen feels relaxed about the forthcoming season after seeing how he performed on the first day of testing.
What was Max Verstappen and the team’s response to the new RB20?
After dominating and winning 21 of 22 races Red Bull picked up where they left off last season, in Bahrain testing. The team demonstrated their dominance once more as Verstappen finished 1.1 seconds ahead of Norris in second place. Undoubtedly, this gap indicates that Red Bull’s efforts to produce RB20 have been tactically effective.
This is what Helmut Marko also believes. While talking to Motorsport.com, the 80-year-old said, “Very, very, very impressive. The concept is working. So that was the first main thing. The car is reacting, and we are developing. Yeah, it looks good.”
Later team’s star driver Max Verstappen reiterated Marko’s remarks. According to Verstappen, the adjustments made by the team have been working and it just needs some fine-tuning.
Amidst all these happy faces, Marko later compared Red Bull with its rivals. The Austrian advisor initially acknowledged that the rival teams had taken a risk by making drastic adjustments between seasons. Expanding on the comparison, Marko then expressed his immense pride in seeing RB20 respond so well to improvements.
While considering their competitors, he acknowledged that Mercedes appeared to be having some issues, although he claimed that they appeared faster than last year. He continued by discussing Ferrari’s tire problems from the previous year, which Marko claims is still a concern this year. The 80-year-old made a final observation about McLaren and said they appeared “nervous.”
