Villeneuve downplays Red Bull dominance: 'Are not Mercedes' years'

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Villeneuve on Verstappen and Red Bull
14 December 2023 at 08:00
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  • Matt Gretton
  • Editor-in-Chief

Max Verstappen was the outright winner of the 2023 Formula One World Championship, there was no disputing that. Only Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez could keep him from victory in Red Bull Racing's dominant season. Yet Formula One world champion Jacques Villeneuve thinks the gap between the Austrian racing team and the rest of the field is not idiotically large at all.

"Red Bull is not that far ahead," the Canadian let PlanetF1 note. "When they got all their poles, it was a tenth, half a tenth… super close! So that’s not domination," he says decidedly. "That’s not the years of Mercedes when they were a second ahead of everyone, and everybody was OK with that – there was not an issue."

Villeneuve on Verstappen's dominance

That Verstappen is in a class of his own seems beyond doubt, yet Villeneuve does not think he is that hugely ahead of the rest of the Formula 1 grid at all.

"Max makes the difference because he’s at it 24 hours a day. He’s never getting tired. He gets out for the race car, and he’s still thinking about racing. That’s all that exists. If they all focused like Max, then maybe they would be at Max’s level," he explained.