Former Formula 1 star and World Champion Jacques Villeneuve is astonished by the performance of Max Verstappen in the 2022 season.
Villeneuve was reviewing on the Hungarian Grand Prix, a race Verstappen won from starting 10th on the grid. Verstappen was the least favored for winning the race on Sunday.
However, the Dutch charged down the field winning his 8th race of the season.
The Championship leader leads the Championship by 80 points now as F1 heads into the summer break.
Here is what Villeneuve said about the season so far:
“If you look at all the races in isolation, you would expect a much more exciting battle for the title. The new rules are working well, drivers can follow each other much longer and be more aggressive in the race.”
“We have already seen some fine battles between Ferrari and Red Bull. Ferrari is just as strong, if not stronger. But Red Bull has such a huge lead,” reflected Villeneuve.
“Nothing has been decided yet, there are still plenty of races to go. But if the trend continues, if Max Verstappen continues to drive at this level and Red Bull also continues to develop, it will be very difficult to stop them,”
added the 1997 World Champion.
The 2022 season definitely seems to be slipping away from Ferrari. It already seems that Red Bull and Verstappen have got it all covered now.
Even if Leclerc goes on to win every race after the summer break, Max Verstappen only has to finish 2nd in those races, including the sprint in Brazil.
These stats themselves speak about how the season has been for Ferrari and Leclerc so far.
Max Verstappen is a ‘machine’
As Formula 1 heads to summer break, here is what Villeneuve said about Max’s incredible drive at Budapest:
“Max is a machine, he’s simply not normal! He wasn’t even tired yesterday [Sunday], I don’t think he even needs to go on holiday! He is driving so incredibly strongly this year, and the team is not making any mistakes.”
“And if something goes wrong, he and Red Bull always create the best conditions to put things right,
“Yesterday [Sunday] he could have gone for damage limitation, he did not have to win but he did. That is how they go into the race, they don’t put any pressure on themselves and then play it extremely well.”
added Villeneuve.
Hard tyres were the ‘hard’ way on Sunday
The most noticeable topic of the race in Budapest were the Hard tyres. At the 2022 Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix, the hard tyres offered no grip.
The ‘concrete tyres’ were extremely slow in comparison to other compounds. However, what gained even more attention was Ferrari’s call to put Leclerc on the Hard compound.
Moreover, Alpine had also done the same mistake earlier in the race. It was warned before the race that Hards were not the tyres to opt for in the race!
“Something else that amazed me yesterday were the decisions that were made,” Villeneuve said. “Formula 1 is the pinnacle, everything is top notch. Not just the drivers, but also the mechanics, engineers and strategists,”
added the former World Champion.
“How can multiple teams, not just Ferrari, make the decision to go for the hard tyre? Even after Alpine had shown that it was a worthless tyre. Were they not watching the race? Something is going terribly wrong there. It is incomprehensible that such a thing can happen in a sport which only employs the best of the best,”
an astonished Villeneuve added.
The ‘hards’ strategy costed Ferrari a race win and a lot of track position.
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