by VALERIO BARRETTA
Hamilton-Verstappen, two worlds compared
Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton they couldn't be more different. And, to their credit, they do nothing to look alike. These champions, so polar opposite but equally capable of catalysing the crowds at the screens and attracting them to the track, have given life to one of the most iconic rivalries of all time, perhaps the one most remembered from the 2000s, although they fought equally against each other only for one year.
Watson's words
Two recognizable and recognized universes, which F1 race operations manager Graham Watsonformer Toro Rosso team manager who saw Verstappen's star rise in the Circus, described with a comparison that will cause discussion: “Hamilton is very talented, but he is involved in so many things that people wonder whether he is an F1 driver or not. Lewis is a brand, Max is a Formula 1 driver. I'm not saying what Hamilton does is wrong, but he doesn't study like Max. When guys like Max aren't in the car, they're in the simulator or in a kart, and they're always trying to improve“, these are the words to the Dutch of Formulas1.
Destroy the companion
Verstappen's mentality, as many have underlined, reverberates not only on his free time, but also and above all on the track, where the Dutchman is always among the most focused. He impresses the three-time world champion with his ability to get into a rhythm from the first lap of free practice, while teammate Sergio Perez needs much more time to find a satisfactory point of contact with the car.
The frosty relationship with his teammate is what makes Verstappen the current car: “His dad Jos instilled in Max that the first thing to do is to destroy your teammate. I think Jos believed that in his time Michael Schumacher at Benetton had better material and was the favourite. So he convinced Max of the importance of being the man around whom the whole team revolves. Even in Toro Rosso it was immediately clear that it would be Max, and not Carlos Sainz, who would come out on top“.
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