Having entered the sport at the young age of 17, Max Verstappen climbed the ranks rapidly to become a world champion driver in 2021. Today, he is a two-time defending world champion and while the argument for who the greatest driver in F1 currently is, revolves around Verstappen and Hamilton, a Red Bull team member does not favor the Dutchman.
Most fans seem to be sure that Verstappen and Hamilton are the two greatest drivers in F1 today. However, there are endless debates and arguments about who is better. These discussions got even more heated after the iconic and infamous conclusion to the 2021 championship. The two of them could not be separated until the final lap of the final race that season. Ultimately, however, things went in favor of Verstappen. Since then, he has only increased the gap to Hamilton.
Even Lewis Hamilton has now conceded his driving skills alone won’t be enough for him to get the better of Verstappen. Red Bull’s RB19 car has been an engineering marvel. It is proving to be one of the most dominant cars in F1 history. However, that is not enough for Red Bull’s senior technician Calum Nicholas to believe Max Verstappen deserves the F1’s greatest driver crown.
Calum Nicholas chooses Ayrton Senna over Max Verstappen
Nicholas recently appeared on a podcast conducted by YouTube Channel Track Limits. Here, he discussed multiple aspects of the sport, including who he thought the greatest-ever driver in the F1 is. Because of his ties to Red Bull, many expected him to say Verstappen‘s name. However, Nicholas’ answer couldn’t be more different.
“In terms of like just the passion and the soul I think it’d have to be Senna. You know I think, I think that more, than you know necessarily the amount of titles you’d want or anything like that I think just his belief and his sort of drive and it’s something that I think pretty much all the drivers have now is, you know we all think of Senna as an amazing character, you know, he was he was ruth, he was a ruthless winner you know, and there’s so much to be admired about it.”
Not the first time Verstappen was compared to Senna
While Nicholas’ answer may have surprised many, the comparison between the two is a topic that has been discussed previously in the industry. Former F1 driver Gerhard Berger also once placed Verstappen in the same league as F1 legend Ayrton Senna. In conversation with Kronen Zeitung, Berger said the Verstappen-Perez dynamic reminded him of the Senna-Alain Prost era, placing Verstappen and Senna in the same bracket.
Berger also claimed Verstappen would obliterate all the records in the F1, especially those of Ayrton Senna. Today, that prophecy is starting to come true. ‘Mad Max’ tied Senna’s record of 41 Grand Prix wins by winning the Canadian GP this season. By winning the Austrian GP two weeks later, he overtook Senna in the list of most Grand Prix career wins. The 25-year-old now has 45 wins under his belt, and if he continues with this dominance, Hamilton’s record of 103 career Grand Prix wins might also be facing grave danger.
