Windsor on Hamilton in a Red Bull: 'Verstappen would be faster'

7 September 2023 at 12:33

Last update 7 September 2023 at 12:58

Cas van de Kleut

Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton are regularly compared. Hamilton has dominated Formula 1 for years, while Verstappen is now the driver leading the dance. Peter Windsor addressed the difference between the two world champions during a livestream on his YouTube channel.

In 2021, we were presented with a battle we will still remember 30 years from now. Hamilton was going for his eighth title, while Verstappen had never been world champion before. After a long and fierce season, the Dutchman drew the longest straw by overtaking his British rival in the last race, on the last lap.

Difference between Verstappen and Hamilton

Meanwhile, it is 2023 and the difference between the two after 14 races is already 200 points. Where Red Bull has things in order, Mercedes does not. Yet the two are still compared a lot. "I think some people out there might immediately say, oh well, you know, when the car is not very good, Max does a much better job than Lewis. And I think that is probably the case. But, and I'm referring now to when Max wasn't in a race-winning Red Bull, but he was still finishing fourth or fifth very consistently. And it's pretty logical that Max, in the early phase of his career, if he's not in a race-winning car, he's still going to get the best from it."

"Whereas Lewis, if he's at the back end of his career, and he's won seven world championships in a very good race car, generally speaking, and then suddenly he's given a bad handling car, then he's not going to do as good a job. Because A, he hasn't got enough to sort of refer to, and B, inevitably, he's not going to be quite as on it as somebody, a young guy like Max, if you look back to where Max was when the Red Bull wasn't winning races. So I don't call that a technical difference. I call that more of a psychological difference."

Who will win in the RB19: Verstappen or Hamilton?

According to Windsor, who would win in the RB19 is also pretty clear: "Now where Lewis is and what he's done in the past, if you put him in a Red Bull tomorrow I don't think he'd be as quick as Max, partly because Max has this rapport with Adrian Newey and knows the team incredibly well. He knows the car but I think beyond that, Lewis needs to grow organically with Mercedes again in order to become potentially the Lewis that he was back in 2020/2019, when he was doing really well."