Max Verstappen demolished any chance of Sergio Perez challenging him in 2023 by building a huge lead. Despite being in the same RB19, Perez was nowhere near Verstappen’s pace throughout the season. The Dutchman’s driving style is the reason behind this alarming gap. Former motorsport driver Scott Mansell explained how Verstappen reinvented Michael Schumacher’s driving style to achieve his dominant 2023 feats.
In a video earlier this year on his YouTube channel Driver61, Mansell explained Schumacher’s driving style and how it was extremely unique to anyone else. While he had a car very different to what Verstappen drives today, Mansell explained how the seven-time champion handled his car in his unique style.
Both Schumacher and Verstappen can be called ‘oversteer merchants’ as they prefer a car with oversteer. Back in the day, the Ferrari veteran had a similar setup to what the Red Bull driver gets today. Both had a car with a point front end with all the aero balance, grip, and weight distribution toward the front axle.
This setup often makes the car oversteer due to a loose rear end. This is where both Verstappen and Schumacher‘s brilliance comes into play. The German driver used to take a wider V-shaped racing line into a corner to have late braking and get on the throttle earlier than other drivers.
It always felt like his car was “dancing” through the corners as Mansell explained. However, Schumacher corrected it enough to not lose grip and get on the throttle quickly. Mansell then further explained that Verstappen does a similar maneuver, only that his car today gives him more grip.
Still, the three-time champion has to adapt a bit as he cannot be as hard as Schumacher used to be on the throttle. Being hard on the throttle won’t be kind on the Pirelli tires that F1 uses currently. So, Verstappen goes a little easy and tweaks his racing line, but his fundamental style is very similar to that of the German racing legend.
How Max Verstappen use his brilliance and car setup to beat his teammates?
Scott Mansell gave multiple demonstrations of how Max Verstappen uniquely maneuvers his car to create a big deficit for his teammates. He also cited the Dutch GP as an example as it was a rain-marred race. The Dutchman benefits a lot from his driving style in changeable conditions.
Mansell explained how Verstappen created a 12-second gap over Sergio Perez in just a couple of laps. The rainy conditions may have made the oversteery RB19 even more unstable through the corners. Since Perez already finds Verstappen’s setup difficult to drive, the rain at Zandvoort amplified his issues.
It is no secret that Red Bull designs their cars around Verstappen’s style. Adrian Newey experimented with two types of suspensions on the RB19 earlier in 2023. Thus, there was some understeer on the car that helped Perez’s driving style to some extent. Therefore, he was able to perform at par with Verstappen in Jeddah and Baku.
However, post that race in Baku, Verstappen reinvented his style to cope with the understeer too. While Newey and Red Bull Racing may have reverted to another spec of suspension, it overall helped Verstappen to gain back a ton of pace on his teammate.
All in all, whenever the car is unstable through the corner, Verstappen has better handling of the car than Perez. It is this reason why the Mexican often finishes way behind the three-time champion during both qualifying and the race.
