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Verstappen isn't the best driver yet, but it's getting closer and closer

Verstappen isn't the best driver yet, but "it's getting closer and closer"

10-08-2020 20:53
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GPblog.com

Max Verstappen showed his best side again last weekend and on strategy he managed to beat the almighty Mercedesses. The Mercedes cars had too much trouble with the tyres, where Verstapen apparently drove around effortlessly with his RB16. He even had time to push and make fun and that made him an out of class driver.

Hamilton is the best driver

Lewis Hamilton is seen as the best driver of the moment, but more and more often - especially after this kind of performance by Verstappen - the question comes back whether if not the Dutchman is the better driver. Formula 1 connoisseur and specialist Mark Hughes argues that this is not yet the case, but that he is getting very close.

Hughes is told this by The Race and he answers: "There are days when any one of Hamilton, Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and Daniel Ricciardo is the best. They are close enough that it’s not always the same guy – it depends upon circumstances. Today it was Verstappen."

Verstappen was perfect

"Red Bull gave him the opportunity and he was perfect – getting the car through Q2 on the hard (and you’d need to be super quick to do that), then pacing his race brilliantly, understanding quicker than the team that he needed to be pushing into the Mercedes, not backing away from them", an already praising Hughes repeats the performance of Verstappen.

"Swap the circumstances, put Hamilton in the Red Bull, Verstappen in the Mercedes – and the car traits would have been the dominant factor. So, who is the overall best driver is down to the whole bandwidth of circumstances – and in the breadth and depth of his all-round ability, it’s still Hamilton."

"But it’s getting closer and closer," concludes Hughes who sees that Verstappen is still developing.