Hill: 'Max got a bright future ahead of him'
That Verstappen is currently the fastest in combination with his car is obvious, but what qualities of the Dutchman, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso combined would make the most complete driver? Damon Hill gives his opinion on the matter in the new F1 Nation podcast.
A few weeks ago, the new F1 game was released, and here it covers four different traits for driver stats: pace, racecraft, experience and awareness. In terms of pace, Hill thinks Verstappen is currently the strongest relative to Hamilton and Alonso: "It is very close, I would say if you put them together against for 10 races, maybe Lewis would come out ahead whereas Max would probably clap a wall or something in two or three of those events, cause he wants to beat Lewis so much that he would overdo it."
'Lewis the best in the race'
In terms of racecraft, Hill sees Hamilton as the best: "I think the thing is with Lewis is that in a race, he is able to produce stunning laps when he needs to. I don’t know if Fernando still got that ability to do that. Say it to Lewis, ‘we’ve got a target and this is it’, he manages to pull it out somehow."
Experience and awareness
In terms of experience, Hill opts for Alonso. He explains that this is not only because he has driven the most races of the three drivers, but also because he has driven good, competitive cars as well as cars that ran at the back of the field. This makes him more complete, Hill believes. The Brit nominates Verstappen as the driver with the best awareness. According to him, it is important to be aware from time to time about what is happening around you, in terms of events in the race. By this, presenter Tom Clarkson is referring to the comment about Marko's phone going off during the race weekend in Spain.
'Not seen everything from Verstappen yet'
After the ratings, the former world champion in 1996 believes that full judgements can still be made about Verstappen: "When you try to compare drivers like this, you have to say, currently, where we are at, you have to put your money on Max, because he seems to have all the ingredients and he’s got a bright future ahead of him, whereas the others are, whichever you cut it, they are past the middle of their career, they have done the bulk of it."