Former Formula 1 champion Jacques Villeneuve has offered his explanation on why Daniel Ricciardo is currently better than teammate Max Verstappen.
Last weekend in Monaco, it was the Australian who once again produced the goods when needed with a perfect weekend, leading every session, to take his second victory of 2018 and move him into third place in the Drivers’ standings.
In contrast, the Dutchman saw his chances of a good result vanish in final practice as a crash at the second part of the Swimming Pool complex saw him miss qualifying with a gearbox problem and start at the back of the grid before making his way back through to P9 on Sunday.
But it was the latest in a string of incidents involving Verstappen this season which has led many to think that Red Bull has backed the wrong driver for their future as the 20-year-old enjoys a big-money deal until 2020 while Ricciardo is out of contract at the end of the year.
“Verstappen makes mistakes in every race. It happens all the time,” the outspoken Canadian told Sky Italia. “It’s a bad sign. For example, Ricciardo was not at all to blame for their crash in Baku. He did nothing wrong.”
After each one of his errors this year many have called on Max to temper his all-out approach but those calls have largely fell on deaf ears, except for Monaco where a conservative race yielded a good result.
However, Villeneuve believes there is another reason why the three-time F1 race winner has been reluctant to change.
“If a driver is constantly making mistakes, he must calm down and slow down. But to be at Ricciardo’s level, he has to take more risks,” he said. “It can only mean one thing: Max is not as good as Daniel. Full stop!”
Also Read:
Another ex-champion who is less optimistic about Verstappen’s future is Nico Rosberg, who told Germany’s RTL broadcaster: “He hasn’t seemed to learn at all. It’s already the fifth time this year but it’s his fourth season in Formula 1.
“You can’t really say it’s inexperience. It’s a very dark moment for Max.
“At the moment everything is going wrong for him but I don’t have much hope for him anymore.”