Mercedes F1 star makes astonishing Hamilton admission

Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Red Bull, Mercedes, China, 2024 — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 News & Gossip

Mercedes F1 star makes astonishing Hamilton admission

Nico Rosberg believes Max Verstappen is nearly one of the top five drivers in F1 history

By Shay Rogers.

Thursday 2 May 2024 15:00

A former Mercedes F1 star and world champion has made a significant claim about Max Verstappen following an era of unprecedented dominance.

The Dutchman is the undisputed number one of the sport currently, having taken all but three wins since the final race of the 2022 season.

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In fact, aged just 26, he has the third most victories of any driver and shows no signs of slowing down with a dominant Red Bull team and a contract with them until the end of 2028.

It will give him the chance to win eight championships if he can knock off every single one between now and then – which would be insanity given that they would have to be consecutive and across three sets of technical regulations.

Max Verstappen has been almost unbeatable for two years

Max Verstappen celebrates winning the Chinese Grand Prix

Just how good is Max Verstappen?

According to the 2016 F1 champion, Verstappen is already in the upper echelons of the greatest talents ever.

“Verstappen easily, yeah. Because he's very soon going to be a top-five driver of all time with [Ayrton] Senna, [Michael] Schumacher, with Lewis [Hamilton] and [Juan Manuel] Fangio,” he told Business of Sport.

“I mean, he's already mentioning now that he's not going to be around forever but for sure he has many many more years in it.

“I mean at the moment also, it has become I think a little bit easier currently for him because there's no team-mate that's threatening him because he is so fast. It's not the team-mate that's slow and his car is so great.”

Red Bull Max Verstappen Lewis Hamilton Mercedes Michael Schumacher Nico Rosberg