Albers saw nervous Verstappen: 'He was messing around'

"You get Austin first of course, which is really a Mercedes circuit. Then you get Mexico, which is of course a Verstappen track. He can make the difference there. Even though the car is a bit slower, he makes the difference in that last sector. You do notice that the Mercedes now has a better standard set-up step by step, not in terms of updates", Albers says.

"Now is the opportunity for Red Bull to make Max Verstappen world champion. Then you just have to pull out all the stops, not worrying about next year's car at all. You can't say for sure that you will have a good car next year. The same goes for Mercedes. Lewis Hamilton can become world champion for the eighth time. I think they are both secretly going full throttle with updates anyway."

Nervous Verstappen

According to Albers, the two title rivals both did not have a good weekend. "Now if you go and look at the trend of the last races, for me Lewis Hamilton didn't drive well this weekend. He did drive well, but he had bad luck everywhere he ended up. Max wasn't really in his mood either. He's been messing around as well."

"In the interviews he was relaxed, but you could already see, that wasn't the Max Verstappen who was fighting Bottas. They saw from the beginning, this is a no-go. They only tried to limit the damage, but if you see how nervous he was with the car in Turkey, it was just almost impossible to drive."