Hill slates "lamentable" Ferrari title challenge

Former F1 champion Damon Hill has slated Ferrari's performance as "lamentable" after failing to challenge Max Verstappen for world title honours.

Verstappen secured his second consecutive crown with a dominant victory in Japan that set up a chance for Red Bull to clinch constructors' honours at this weekend's United States Grand Prix.

The turnaround from being 46-points down on Charles Leclerc after two retirements from the opening three races is the biggest comeback in F1 history.

But while hailing the performance of Verstappen, Hill reflected on the F1 Nation podcast that Ferrari's errors had also played a significant role in the Red Bull driver's success.

"I think it's very difficult actually to decide whether or not it's Red Bull and Max's brilliance this season and almost perfect performance or whether it was Ferrari shooting themselves in the foot," said Hill.

"It was a lamentable at times performance from them because they showed so much promise at the beginning and between the team's strategy and a few driver errors and basically lacking the ability to move forward with that car, they didn't provide a challenge to Max."

In the battle to finish second to Verstappen, just a single point separates Sergio Perez and Leclerc, with the Mexican holding the advantage.

Hill added: "It's still close between Sergio [Perez] and Charles in the championship, so if you took Max out of the equation, you could say that's the difference, but Max was 20-seconds ahead of Charles and Sergio in Japan, in the wet after 20 laps.

"He was a second-a-lap quicker and Ferrari couldn't play with that at all."

Related

More F1 news

Latest F1 news

Kimi Antonelli's F1 victory: Star ignored George Russell order at Chinese GP

• 17 minutes ago

BMW make decision on F1 return

• 1 hour ago

Kimi Antonelli makes bold pitch for Max Verstappen to become his team-mate

• 2 hours ago

F1 drivers age: How old are Lewis Hamilton, Verstappen, Norris and co in 2026?

• 3 hours ago

Audi F1 project thrown into chaos after just two races

• 3 hours ago

Toto Wolff sends clear message to F1 rivals 'snitching' to FIA

• Today 08:52