'Even if everyone drives a Red Bull, Max Verstappen will be the quickest'

Max Verstappen leads the world championship after four races this season. The RB19 is very dominant, but despite Verstappen driving around in the dominant car, Johnny Herbert thinks that even if everyone else was driving a Red Bull, the Dutchman would run away with victory.

Of the first four races in 2023, Verstappen managed to win two, in Bahrain and Australia. The Dutchman did not win in Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan, here his teammate Sergio Perez took victory. In Jeddah, the two-time world champion had a reliability problem in qualifying and in Baku, the Dutchman was unlucky with the timing of the safety car.

'Verstappen best'

According to Herbert, former F1 analyst at Sky Sports, Verstappen is the fastest driver in the Formula 1 field at the moment. "If everyone drove a Red Bull, now as we are today I’d say Max would still be the quickest although there would not be much in it purely on where he is at in his career, where we see him do it every single weekend," said the analyst at Ice36.

'Verstappen not yet at his peak'

In 2022, Verstappen had a hugely dominant season. The Dutchman ended up winning 16 races, despite a poor season start with two retirements in three races. The two-time world champion also comes on strong in 2023. The British analyst thinks the Red Bull driver is not even at his peak yet. "Has he peaked? No. There is always a time the greats of the sport don’t stay great until that last lap on the track. And they don’t know it’s their last lap."