Verstappen’s rivals can beat him when vehicles are “extra equal”

Max Verstappen clinched his fourth consecutive world championship final weekend however rival Carlos Sainz Jnr stated the second half of the season confirmed he’s beatable.

The Crimson Bull driver constructed up a convincing lead early within the season, taken seven wins from the primary 10 rounds. Nevertheless the crew’s rivals put them below extra stress because the season went on and Verstappen has solely gained one of many dozen rounds since then.

Sainz stated Verstappen’s championship win proved he had been the very best driver of the 12 months. Nevertheless he stated the extra aggressive second half of the championship confirmed his rivals can compete on the similar stage as him.

“As a lot as I feel Max has executed an unbelievable job this 12 months, it simply reveals within the second half of the season, eight drivers inside a tenth [of a second] of one another, we may all beat him week in, week out,” stated Sainz.

“He was extraordinarily good at dominating with a dominant automotive and very good at not making errors the second half of the season. And that’s what’s given him, for me, driver of the 12 months and the championship. However the second half of the season simply reveals that once we are all in equal, extra of an equal equipment, we are able to all go up towards one another and make one another’s life troublesome.”

Drivers discover it simpler to keep away from errors when they don’t face shut competitors from their rivals, stated Sainz. “Everybody begins making errors once they’re below stress and everybody begins complaining about their automotive and everybody begins complaining within the media about their automotive.

“It’s all about stress administration and never having that margin. Everytime you don’t have a two, three tenths margin in your nearest rival or your crew mate, immediately stress ramps up and everyone seems to be human.”

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Nevertheless Verstappen believes his efficiency final 12 months, when Crimson Bull dominated the championship and he gained 19 out of twenty-two rounds, is under-appreciated.

“Final 12 months I had a dominant automotive however I all the time felt that not everybody appreciated what we achieved as a crew, profitable [grand prix] 10 in a row,” he stated. “In fact our automotive was dominant, but it surely wasn’t as dominant, I feel, as individuals thought it was.

“That’s for positive my greatest season I’ll all the time look again at, as a result of even in locations the place possibly we didn’t have the proper set-up, we had been nonetheless succesful, as a result of within the race, our automotive was all the time fairly sturdy, to win races.”

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