Max Verstappen Was Once Ironically Dubbed “Not as Good As” His Red Bull Teammate Who Is Now in the Trenches

Ever since Max Verstappen was strapped into a Red Bull, he has shown what a talent he is. In his very first Grand Prix for the team at the 2016 Spanish GP, the then-19-year-old stunned the world by winning, right out of the bat. That being said, Formula 1 isn’t a sport that relies completely on talent. The sport has seen many talented drivers in the past, however, only seldom has someone really carved out a niche for themselves. Once upon a time, Verstappen, too, was leading to that dreaded path.

To become a World Champion, consistency is key. As a driver, you cannot afford to make mistakes. In 2022, we saw Haas’ Mick Schumacher losing his drive for arguably this very reason. What sells Verstappen is how aggressive he can be on track. As a youngster, though, he often couldn’t find the limit. Back in 2018, he had six disastrous weekends one after the other, which made a few paddock regulars question his viability for Red Bull.

The 2x champion had dismal races, from Bahrain to Monaco, with the infamous Baku crash with teammate Daniel Ricciardo being the most notable incident he was involved in. However, his mistakes didn’t go down too well with everyone. 1997 F1 champion, Jacques Villeneuve, was chief amongst them.

Villeneuve told Motorsport-Magazin.com, “He makes a mistake in every race, always, always! That’s not a good sign. Normally, drivers who always make mistakes like this have to slow down and come down.” [translated via Google]

He then went on to make a claim, he would surely not own up to now. He said, “But they’re also slowing down. To be as fast as [Daniel] Ricciardo, he has to take more risks. That means he’s not as good as Ricciardo. That’s it!”

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Villeneuve has often been very critical of the Dutchman. But what did Verstappen have to say for himself?

Max Verstappen possibly isn’t too worried about what Villeneuve says

2018 couldn’t have been easy for Verstappen. F1 is a high-pressure sport. Even when you’re out of the car, you sometimes can’t reflect on the mistakes you’ve made in a positive sense. It is because of the all harsh criticism you have to swallow at every step. But for Verstappen, he has always been pretty comfortable with the kind of driver he is.

When asked about the mistakes, he said, “But there were only two real mistakes. The collision with Sebastian in China and the accident in Monaco. Everything else that happened wasn’t entirely my fault.”

Even then, he was pretty confident about his abilities. “It’s a crisis if you’re too slow.”

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Do you think Villeneuve jumped the gun with his Daniel Ricciardo statement? Or do you think on the balance of things Ricciardo was actually faster than Verstappen during their time together at Red Bull?