Tell us a more juicy rivalry than Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. The two men were racing each other the hardest in 2021, which sometimes resulted in incidents where Hamilton ended up with Verstappen’s tire on his head [Monza 2021] or Verstappen ended up in the hospital [Silverstone 2021]. However, things drastically changed in 2022 when the world saw the Dutchman lap Hamilton at Imola last year. But perhaps it didn’t come as a surprise to Johnny Herbert, who is team Verstappen.

For the uninitiated, Lewis Hamilton is considered one of the finest and most successful drivers of Formula 1. The man has 103 poles and wins and record-equaling seven championship wins. While Verstappen has clearly stated he isn’t interested in staying around long enough to claim seven titles, the F1 pundit has already declared him better than Hamilton. And picking a leaf out of Nico Rosberg’s book, Herbert thinks even Verstappen can pick beat Hamilton as Rosberg did in 2016 driving the same car.

As quoted by GP Fans, Herbert said, “If everyone drove a Red Bull now, then I say Max would still be the fastest today. But there’s not much more to it purely based on where he is now in his career and what we see him every weekend do.” And it is safe to believe that the term everyone is a blanket statement for every F1 driver racing currently, which includes the Briton.

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While these declarations are already unfavorable for the Mercedes driver, his car is not much of a support either.

“a kick in the guts,” Lewis Hamilton describes his second Free Practice Session

Lewis Hamilton is a highly positive man known to fight the odds. And while the Mercedes man is still trying to stay positive and work hard, he didn’t enjoy being a second behind his arch rivals, Red Bull.

He said, We’re not particularly quick and it’s a struggle out there. He added, “We’re trying lots of different things. P1 looked quite good and then to come into P2 and the true pace came out – it’s a kick in the guts.”

But trying to put an empathetic foot forward, he said, “It’s difficult to take sometimes but it’s OK, we’ll keep on working on it and we’ll regroup tonight and see if we can make some set-up changes and get the car in a sweeter spot.”

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Do you think Verstappen would beat Hamilton if they drove the same machinery?