Max Verstappen won’t be a problem for Lewis Hamilton in 2025, says former F1 ace
By Simon Head
Juan Pablo Montoya is expecting Red Bull’s performance to drop off in 2025, with Ferrari set to provide the main challenge to McLaren this season.
And that means that the on-track battles between Verstappen and Hamilton might not be as frequent as many are hoping for following Hamilton’s switch to Ferrari.
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Verstappen and Hamilton’s on-track battles were a highlight of the sport a few seasons ago, with their now-infamous battle in Abu Dhabi ending in controversy as Verstappen pipped Hamilton to the F1 Drivers’ Championship.
Mercedes’ car issues and struggles with the new ground-effect aero rules meant they were never really in a consistent fight with Red Bull over the last couple of seasons. It deprived fans of the chance to see Hamilton and Verstappen resume their battle, with their respective cars light-years apart in terms of effectiveness on race day.
But hopes were high that we could see Hamilton and Verstappen resume their rivalry when Hamilton swapped Mercedes for Ferrari. But, with Red Bull’s performance dropping off, and the loss of their technical genius Adrian Newey to Aston Martin, former F1 ace Montoya doesn’t see too many wheel-to-wheel scraps between the old rivals this season.
“Max Verstappen is not going to be Lewis’s problem this year,” he told OnlineCassino.br.
“I’d be surprised if Red Bull comes out swinging like the last few years.
“Adrian Newey came out the other day saying that the problems at Red Bull are not as simple as they think it is.
“It's really difficult because when you believe what you're doing is right and, all of a sudden, things stop working, how far back do you go? And at what point do you go, ‘Is what we're doing now right or are we still wrong?’
“If you're saying you're building the car wrong and you realize what you're doing is wrong, then how convinced are you that what you're doing now is completely right?
“At some point they have just got to go, ‘This is what we believe in and this is where we're going to put an effort in and this is what we're going to do and this is what's going to happen.
“You just start moving sideways or even backwards. If you keep going forward based on the wrong basics you're never going to get out of the hole. And that hole can be very deep, that's the problem.”
Montoya said that McLaren look like the team to beat, having upgraded their car significantly over the course of last season. And that understanding of the technical rules, which remain consistent for this season, should put them ahead of the curve as the teams prepare for the new campaign.
“McLaren seem to have a very good understanding in how to translate everything they are doing into success,” said Montoya.
“McLaren right now are the best team at identifying what is needed, telling the organisation what they are going to do and make it work better.”
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