12 August 2023 , 05:00
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Lewis Hamilton has never been as relentlessly dominant at any point in his remarkable Formula 1 career as Max Verstappen is right now.
That's the view of another F1 champion in Jacques Villeneuve. The Canadian gave his verdict on the two modern-day rivals with the Dutchman closing in on his third title.
Verstappen has a 125-point lead over team-mate Sergio Perez and is even further ahead of anyone else, after just 12 races of 2023. With 10 more to go before this campaign ends, there are a swathe of single-season records there to be broken for a man who hasn't even turned 26 yet.
In comparison, Hamilton has been nowhere near a title challenge and is without a win since the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in December of that year. Though, in his defence, Mercedes haven't provided him with a car which can compete with the Red Bull machines Verstappen has had at his disposal.
Hamilton has had some incredible cars in the past, during Mercedes' eight-year winning streak in the constructors' championship. But even during that time, Villeneuve believes there was never a point at which the seven-time world champion was as lethal as Verstappen is today.
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"He goes very up and down in performance, it depends on the weekends," he said of Hamilton in an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport. "But he's always been like that, every season, even when he was winning. He's never had a perfect year like Verstappen.
"[Verstappen] always has an extraordinary energy, he never gives up. And he makes a difference. Verstappen has always been like that, for years. He's at his best for the whole season. It's hallucinating how he does it, maybe only [Fernando] Alonso was comparable.
"If you look at most of the other drivers they all have ups and downs, often with quite a bit of difference between them. Not him. I really don't know where he gets all that energy from. When he is like that, which is practically all the time, he is unbeatable."
With Verstappen in a league of his own this season, some fans have labelled the lack of a title race "boring". Asked if even he finds it dull to have such little opposition on a Grand Prix weekend, the Red Bull racer dismissed the suggestion.
He said: "That actually doesn't make it boring. That's why I'm here. I want to be here. I want to win. To be up front. It's what makes it a lot more enjoyable to come to a race weekend. Knowing that you can't win, you have no chance – that's boring for me. This is the opposite."