George Russell beat Lewis Hamilton last season in the driver’s standings. Nonetheless, Lewis Hamilton is much more comfortable with the car now and is showing Russell why he is 7X World Champion. However, Hamilton was labeled as a blessing when compared to Max Verstappen’s nastiness. But why is it so and what is this nastiness? Meanwhile, Daniel Ricciardo also gets a reality check.

Max Verstappen and Red Bull went into the 2023 F1 season as the favorites to win the championship. However, nobody expected the machine-like dominance that the Dutchman has been putting up this season finishing a postcode ahead of everyone. However, it didn’t look like the 25-year-old would be the only one challenging for the title as Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen were neck and neck after the first 5 races of the season.

Coming to Lewis Hamilton, he’s not an easy teammate to be alongside as George Russell is experiencing now. However, Jacques Villeneuve believes that compared to Max Verstappen, it is a blessing to have Hamilton as a teammate. The Former F1 World Champion suggests it was Checo’s initial challenge that got Verstappen to be nasty as he further goes on to talk about Red Bull’s future No.2 driver alongside Max Verstappen.

According to corriere.it, Jacques Villeneuve said “It was also difficult to be next to Hamilton in the Mercedes. But Max is different: he is always at the top, he is a “machine”, he is not human, he is never wrong. Max got nasty. And Perez has a huge weight on him, it’s a headache. If he goes into that tunnel it’s hard to get out. I don’t think Ricciardo could be the alternative, a beautiful smile on Instagram is not enough to get back on an F1. There is Tsunoda with three years of experience, let’s see.”

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However, Verstappen stepping up didn’t really matter as Perez fell off in terms of performance after the Miami GP. Many speculations are now being made around the fact that Daniel Ricciardo might replace Perez next year. Nonetheless, Villeneuve explains Red Bull don’t need a PR merchant who smiles and that there is Yuki Tsunoda who’s been seasoned well by AlphaTauri for 3 year now. Regardless, Verstappen winning every race doesn’t seem to be stimulating enough for the fans as The F1 owners make a request to Red Bull.

Red Bull to sign a competitive driver alongside Max Verstappen 

Watching a single driver dominate and win most of the races isn’t fun for anyone. The new ground effect regulations were introduced only to promote closer racing. However, while the field has bunched up and the gap between teams has come down significantly, Red Bull are operating in a league of their own. As a result, Liberty Media wants Red Bull to have two competitive drivers. 

Formu1a.uno suggests that Liberty Media has asked Red Bull to sign a competitive driver alongside Max Verstappen so that even if the team is dominating, there’ll still be a fight between the teammates. Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris come up as the leading targets for the same.

What do you think? Did Verstappen really step up after Checo posed a challenge for the title? is Lewis Hamilton a blessing compared to Verstappen?

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