F1: Max Verstappen Is close to perfection – Hill

Former Williams F1 driver Damon Hill said on Monday’s Sky Sports news that Max Verstappen was groomed young to be a perfect driver, and he’s hard to beat.

“They’ve [Mercedes] got a tall order to match or overturn the Red Bull combination with Max Verstappen driving, they have come close to perfection this season, they really have, and they’ve broken a lot of records that have stood for a long time.”

“I think Max is on target to break a record that Jim Clark set back in the ’60s which is the percentage of race wins in a season [Editor’s Note: actually it was Alberto Ascari that holds the records having won 6 of 8 races in a season for 75%. So far Verstappen has won 14 of 17 races in 2023, or 82.3%]

“He’s ticked off loads of records this year and they seem unstoppable. So, you need to achieve perfection to be able to beat them.”

“He’s a new breed of driver whereby he started very young. In Max’s case, his father was a Formula 1 driver so he had all that experience of Jos Verstappen coaching him and giving him all the right direction.”

“Michael Schumacher lived on a go-kart track, but his dad wasn’t a famous Formula 1 driver – he started very young, as did Lewis Hamilton. Max, from a very early age, has been groomed and coached in the right way to understand what is required, and he’s got the most extraordinary talent.”

“He’s got a good head on his shoulders and is mature. He came into Formula 1 aged 17, before he could even driver a road car, and was both volatile and quick. He’s managed to combine his youth and speed with experience now and I think understands now what the job is. He’s just getting better and better.”