This season, Lewis Hamilton has reaffirmed his position as Mercedes’ best player.
The former Benetton team manager, Joan Villadelprat, has expressed doubts about the quality of Lewis Hamilton’s previous Mercedes teammates. Because of Max Verstappen’s dominance over fellow Red Bull star Sergio Perez, the Spaniard believes that Verstappen is superior to the rest of the Formula One field.
Between 2014 and 2020, Hamilton won the world championship six times in seven years, with Mercedes dominating the Formula One grid. However, he seldom ever outplayed a teammate the way Verstappen has this season against Perez.
Villadelprat, who oversaw Benetton until 1999, attributes Verstappen’s current dominance as the reason Perez’s performance fell short of expectations. The 67-year-old went so far as to criticize several of Hamilton’s former teammates, calling 2016 world champion Nico Rosberg “nothing special.”
Villadelprat told Planet F1 that Hamilton had “been untouchable at times.” Hamilton is incredible. He’s had a great time spending time with Mercedes.
He was fortunate enough to be matched with the paddock’s top engine. I didn’t think [Nico] Rosberg was all that special when you compared him to Hamilton. In qualifying, Rosberg and even [Valtteri] Bottas occasionally outperformed Hamilton, proving that they were not exceptional drivers.
“Max doesn’t seem to have that. He is not even close to his teammate. Furthermore, the teammate is not bad—he has the same level of speed as Russell, Rosberg, and Bottas.”
Then, Villadelprat said flatly, “No [he’s not],” ruling out Hamilton as the greatest driver on the grid or even comparable to Verstappen. Lewis is not perfect. The main point is that we have no idea how good Red Bull is.
“Because [George] Russell is there with Hamilton and you can compare the Mercedes car.” Red Bull does not allow you to do that. Red Bull is leading, and Checo is trailing him by just a second. Despite his slow speed, Checo is an extremely fast driver.
Fans haven’t seen Hamilton and Verstappen square off fairly since Red Bull began to dominate the rest of the field with their performance at the start of last season. However, the British team did seem to be getting closer to the US in their most recent match.
Finding a silver lining despite being disqualified by the FIA for having an illegally worn skid block underneath his Mercedes, Hamilton finished the race just two seconds behind his longtime rival.
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