Villeneuve Blasts Max Verstappen After a String of Poor Performances

Former F1 world champion, Jacques Villeneuve was critical of Max Verstappen as he believes that his teammate Daniel Ricciardo is a better driver than him at the moment. The Canadian made the claim in an interaction with Sky Italia.

He said, ”Verstappen makes mistakes in every race. It happens all the time. It is a bad sign. For example, Ricciardo was not at all to blame for their crash in Baku. He did nothing wrong.”

“If a driver is constantly making mistakes, he must calm down and slow down. But to be at Ricciardo’s level, he has to take more risks. It can only mean one thing; Max is not as good as Daniel. Full stop.”

These claims come on the back of an unimpressive season so far for the Dutch youngster. In six races, Max has recorded 2 DNF’s and has clashed with Vettel and Hamilton in other races. The only saving grace for him has been the podium finish in Spain.

On the other hand, his teammate has won 2 races in China and most recently in Monaco and is possibly in contention for the drivers’ title if he keeps up his performances. He is currently in third in the drivers’ standings with 72 points.

Villeneuve is not the only person to criticise Max though. After a poor mistake in Free Practice at Monaco, Rosberg had also expressed his disappointment at Max’s inability to learn from his mistakes. If only he had kept his head, Red Bull would have probably finished 1-2 with their cars working like a charm.

Though the claim may seem harsh, it is not far from the truth. Max seems to have regressed after his encouraging performances at the end of last season, which resulted in high expectations from this one. He will be looking to mend fences in the next race which takes place in Villeneuve’s hometown of Canada.