With Max Verstappen, Red Bull is reaching the dominant phase of what the Milton-Keynes-based outfit had with Sebastian Vettel. Christian Horner even calls Verstappen’s 2021 title victory the greatest in Red Bull’s history.
Verstappen has also broken the record for the most wins in a season (13), which was earlier only enjoyed by Vettel and Michael Schumacher. Horner mentioned that Verstappen’s 2022 title win in the most dominant he has ever seen.
The Dutchman has won over 14 races this season out of the 20 races that have happened so far. Therefore, the comparisons between two F1 stalwarts were expected.
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Sebastian Vettel is a ‘more complete driver’
Vettel, indeed was a generational talent. While he retires in two weeks, he will be remembered as one of the greats. Seeing him for a while, former head of race engineering at Red Bull Guillaume Rocquelin claims Vettel is a more complete driver than Verstappen.
“I think Sebastian [Vettel] was a more complete driver than Max [Verstappen] when he arrived with us. At the professional level, technique, mediation…he was trained at the [Michael] Schumacher ‘school’, who was his idol,” said Rocquelin.
Though the former Red Bull team member claims Verstappen holds more talent, he calls him weaker in technical prowess than the 53 Grand Prix winner.
Max Verstappen has matured enormously
Verstappen joined F1 at the mere age of 17. The Dutch race driver from then broke into the scene and registered his first win at 18, which is an incredible achievement.
However, with that, Verstappen was also prone to make reckless mistakes. Now, Rocquelin claims that after winning the 2021 championship win, Verstappen has matured immensely and has no more that desperate hunger to win the title, which has made him calmer and wise to make good decisions on track.
The Red Bull drivers’ academy head further praised Verstappen’s influence. He opposes the view that the new Red Bull era started after the 2022 F1 champion started to dominate. According to him, Red Bull’s new era began ever since Verstappen fetched his first win for them.
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