Last week, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said that George Russell’s strong performance in Sir Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes W11 at Sakhir “confirmed” that Max Verstappen is currently the best driver in Formula One.
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“I think he [Verstappen] is the best, yes. Russell’s performance at Mercedes confirmed that for me,” Horner said.
“Max and Lewis stand out for me, but while we absolutely should not be blind to all that Hamilton has achieved, he does have access to a good package while Max has to get more and more out of his car.
“You can see that by the fact that a driver from Williams qualified directly on the front row of the grid and almost won the race.
“If someone had to get into Max’s car, if he had coronavirus, they would never reach his level of performance,” the Red Bull team principal continued.
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has since fired back, saying “You can only judge the best drivers on the grid if you let them race against each other” and stressed that Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton have never been team-mates.
“Christian can’t stop teasing us, but that’s just part of it,” Wolff told Austria’s ORF broadcaster.
“We haven’t seen Lewis against Max yet. We haven’t seen George against Lewis and we haven’t seen Charles Leclerc in a top car.
“But the future is for the young drivers and at some point they will all race against each other with the same equipment and then we will see who is the best,” the Austrian added.
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