10 October 2023 , 15:16
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Max Verstappen's Formula 1 dominance alongside Red Bull is so strong that their rivals need to be faultless to beat them.
That's the view of Damon Hill as he reacted to the Dutchman's title success at the Qatar Grand Prix. With still the main race in Losail and five more to go this year, Verstappen made certain of the 2023 drivers' championship.
And his Red Bull team had already clinched the constructors' title two weeks earlier. Only once this season has another team won a race, when Carlos Sainz secured victory for Ferrari in Singapore to take full advantage of a rare off weekend for Verstappen's team.
The speed of Red Bull's car and the consistently high level of performance Verstappen has been able to extract from it means, as far as 1996 world champion Hill is concerned, the likes of Lewis Hamilton and his Mercedes team face a near-impossible task.
"They've got a tall order to match or overturn the Red Bull combination with Max Verstappen driving," he told Sky Sports. "They have come close to perfection this season, they really have, and they've broken a lot of records that have stood for a long time.
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"I think Max is on target to break a record that Jim Clark set back in the '60s which is the percentage of race wins in a season. He's ticked off loads of records this year and they seem unstoppable. So, you need to achieve perfection to be able to beat them."
Verstappen only turned 26 at the end of September and is already a three-time world champion. Though he has said on many occasions he plans to leave F1 earlier than most, his Red Bull contract until the end of 2028 gives him enough time to add several more titles to his name and threaten the record Hamilton shares with Michael Schumacher.
Hill is backing the Dutchman to continue improving more and more. "He's a new breed of driver whereby he started very young," he added. "In Max's case, his father was a Formula 1 driver so he had all that experience of Jos Verstappen coaching him and giving him all the right direction.
"Michael Schumacher lived on a go-kart track but his dad wasn't a famous Formula 1 driver – he started very young, as did Lewis Hamilton. Max, from a very early age, has been groomed and coached in the right way to understand what is required and he's got the most extraordinary talent.
"He's got a good head on his shoulders and is mature. He came into Formula 1 aged 17, before he could even driver a road car, and was both volatile and quick. He's managed to combine his youth and speed with experience now and I think understands now what the job is. He's just getting better and better."