Photo by Bryn Lennon/Getty Images for Oracle Red Bull Racing
The F1 champion discussed being a teammate and more on Viaplay’s ‘F1 Talks’
While the silly season of driver movement — and team principal — movement is winding down, thoughts are already turning towards the 2023 Formula One season. Two-time world champion Max Verstappen discussed both the 2022 campaign, and the future of the sport, in a recent roundtable on Viaplay’s F1 Talks series.
In a wide-ranging, two-part discussion, Verstappen shared his thoughts on the sport along with host Amber Brantsen and four former drivers, including his father Jos, Heikki Kovalainen, Giedo van der Garde and Björn Wirdheim. They talked about the length of the season, sprint and street races, the debut of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, and the new aerodynamics. Verstappen talked about the dominant weekend he and Red Bull had at the Belgian Grand Prix, his second-straight Drivers’ Championship, and more.
But his comments about being a teammate in F1 are drawing the most attention.
When the discussion turned to driver Valtteri Bottas, who moved from Mercedes to Alfa Romeo at the start of last season, Verstappen talked about the kind of teammate Bottas was while driving alongside Lewis Hamilton during his days with Mercedes.
“I think you start every year with a good fresh mind. But then after a couple of races you realize that again [winning a championship] is not happening and you accept your role…you just have to accept that the guy next to you is a little bit better than you.
“It’s important that he accepted it. Some drivers can’t do that and then it goes completely wrong.
“Then they don’t survive for very long. I’m not going to name names, but you have to accept your role. You can’t live in a fairytale world.”
(The Bottas discussion begins at the 17:20 mark of this video).
Verstappen’s comments were immediately viewed through the prism of how last season ended. During the Brazilian Grand Prix, the second-to-last race of the season, Verstappen was given the instruction by his team to give way to teammate Sergio Perez, who was locked in a battle for second place in the Drivers’ Championship with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
Verstappen, however, did not let his teammate pass him on the final lap, and over the radio indicated that he had his reasons:
After the race, Perez commented that Verstappen was a “two-time world champion” thanks to Perez’s assistance. Over the past two seasons, Perez has aided Verstappen in his pursuit of the world title, perhaps most notably in the final race of the 2021 season, when Perez raced Lewis Hamilton hard in the closing laps of that Grand Prix, enabling Verstappen to join the fray and win on the final lap of the year.
Under circumstances that are still hotly debated on social media, but that is a discussion for another time.
The team reportedly put the incident behind them, focusing on getting Perez into second in the season’s final race, but ultimately Red Bull fell short of that goal. Perez finished the year just three points behind Leclerc, with the Ferrari driver placing second behind Verstappen.
But there is also the possibility that Verstappen’s comments could have nothing to do with Red Bull at all, and rather would better be viewed through the lens of changes at Ferrari. Incoming team boss Fred Vasseur has long maintained that a team should have a primary driver, and his previous relationship with Leclerc leads to the assumption that Vasseur will view Leclerc as Ferrari’s lead driver, with Carlos Sainz as their number two.
You could also wonder if Verstappen is speculating about the relationship between Hamilton and the man who replaced Bottas at Mercedes, George Russell. Hamilton finished the 2022 season without a win for the first time of his career, and thanks to Russell’s victory at Interlagos, he finished ahead of the seven-time world champion in the season standings.
It was the first time that Hamilton was beaten by a Mercedes teammate since Nico Rosberg edged him out for the Drivers’ Championship back in 2016.
That fact led Peter Windsor, who was the team principal at both Ferrari and Williams over his career, to speculate that the relationship between Russell and Hamilton could fracture over time. Speaking on his Twitch channel, Windsor speculated that the relationship between the current Mercedes drivers could be “ten times worse” than the friction between Rosberg and Hamilton, who were once close friends but drifted apart over their years racing against each other.
“I think what you saw in Barcelona on that opening lap [in 2016] between Lewis and Nico is just the start of it between George and Lewis. Up another level…George is tough and hard and he’s going to drive into Lewis quite a lot if they’re in race-winning, Championship-winning cars, for sure…It’ll be so annoying for Lewis – which is why I keep saying that, in reality, if you’ve got Lewis you’re better off with Valtteri [in the other Mercedes seat].”
Windsor references the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix, where Hamilton and Rosberg collided on the opening lap, knocking both Mercedes cars out of the race. That led to Mercedes warning their two drivers that the team would tear up their contracts if such an incident was repeated.
Were Verstappen’s comments more of a warning for his own teammate? A prediction about what could be coming for Ferrari? A cautionary tale for Toto Wolff and Mercedes?
Perhaps the two-time world champion just appreciates how Bottas was a team player during his years with Mercedes?
Or maybe all of the above?
Only time will tell.
