When you think of the greatest drivers who’ve raced in Formula 1 over the years, who comes to mind? Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Michael Schumacher, and Lewis Hamilton would make almost everyone’s list. Well, it might be time to add Max Verstappen to that list because he’s proving just how formidable he is this season. Another race weekend, another broken record. That’s the mantra he seems to be following. At just 25, he already has 45 race wins under his belt. And seeing how much he and Red Bull are improving with each passing season, there seems to be no end to his dominance in sight. And this led former F1 driver Hans-Joachim Stuck to say what he did about the Dutchman.

After winning his first championship in 2021 following a season-long tussle with Hamilton, the 2022 season must have been a walk in the park for Max Verstappen. He won 15 of the 22 races, breaking Schumacher and Vettel’s record of 13. And if last season was a walk in the park, the 2023 season is proving to be a more leisurely one, considering he’s already won 10 of the 12 races so far and is 125 points ahead in the championship. While discussing his dominance and whether anyone can come close to him, Stuck said in an exclusive interview with Eurosport, ” That’s difficult because he’s simply the best driver in the field at the moment.” [Translated via Google]

He continued, “If you leave your teammate 21 seconds behind you and a Ferrari 30 seconds behind you…” Stuck didn’t need to finish that sentence because we all know what it means. Verstappen is just on another level. He compared his era to Senna and Prost’s, saying, “Even in the days of Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna or Niki Lauda, ​​it wasn’t the case that a driver duped the rest of the field like that. He is certainly one of the most outstanding drivers that Formula 1 has ever produced.” 

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When Senna was at the helm, Prost was there to challenge him, and vice versa. When Lauda was winning, James Hunt was there to spoil his party. And while Verstappen is winning, there’s no one to challenge him, not even his teammate, Sergio Perez, in the same RB19. There’s no doubt Verstappen will go down as one of the greatest drivers in F1 history. And while Christian Horner agrees with what Stuck said, Toto Wolff has a different opinion.

Max Verstappen still has time before joining Senna’s league

Red Bull has won all 12 races of the season so far, and 10 of them have come thanks to Verstappen. If he wins the Dutch GP when F1 resumes racing post the summer break, he’ll equal Vettel’s 2013 record of 9 race wins in a row. To add to his accolades this year, Verstappen equaled Senna’s record of 41 race wins at the Canadian GP. And as soon as he did that, Christian Horner said, “What we’re witnessing with Max is the emergence of another mega talent, and you can start to talk about him in the same sentences as the greats.”

But as per Toto Wolff, he still has more to prove before entering the coveted club of the greats. When the question of comparing Verstappen’s dominance to that of Senna came up, Wolff said, “It’s so hard to compare drivers from different generations, but Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, both legends of the sport, and I think Max will soon join that group.”

Do you think Max Verstappen and his dominant era overshadow the greatness of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost?

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