04 December 2023 , 16:52
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Max Verstappen had a near-perfect 2023 season - but rival team boss Frederic Vasseur thinks it's only a matter of time until the mistakes creep in.
Verstappen won 19 of the 21 races his Red Bull team dominated this year. And, other than a rare off-weekend in Singapore, the team was untouchable to their rivals throughout the whole record-breaking campaign.
So often, the Dutchman would either qualify on pole or gain the lead early in the race and simply fly off into the distance, able to manage his tyres so that his team was invariably able to run the optimum strategy to make it extremely hard for their rivals to catch up with him.
All of Red Bull's main rivals, including Ferrari team principal Vasseur, acknowledge that Verstappen has been in a league of his own this year. But the Frenchman feels that will change as soon as other drivers are able to put him under more pressure on track.
"I think it is not sure that someone has a doubt on this, he did a mega season," he said. "He was fighting with Checo [Perez] in the first two or three events and then he was on another planet.
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"Clearly, he didn't do a mistake all season and, when he struggled in qualifying, like in Jeddah, it was due to a mechanical issue. And then he was always there, always making good starts, no contact. The only one was Vegas [a collision caused by George Russell].
"But I think we are getting a bit closer to him. We are... I don't want to say putting him under pressure because it is not true, [in Abu Dhabi] he was not under pressure. But he was a bit more under pressure than he was in Zandvoort, or in some other events when he was flying.
"There is no doubt on the fact that he was dominating all the season. And the only issue for us is that, as everybody, he will do more mistakes when he will be under pressure.
"But nobody was able to put him under pressure this season except us at the last two or three events, or except Carlos [Sainz] in Singapore. And it's where he started to do some mistakes, or perhaps Red Bull did some mistakes in terms of set-up. We were too far away to put this kind of pressure on them."
Verstappen scored 575 points over the course of the year - almost three times as many as both Ferrari drivers. The Italian team finished third in the championship as they were unsuccessful in their bid to leapfrog Mercedes on the final day, though both were more than 450 points adrift of runaway champions Red Bull.