Max Verstappen is continuing to play mind games by suggesting Lewis Hamilton is “very good, but he is not god”.
The Dutchman is seen by some as the biggest threat to the six-time world champion ahead of the 2020 Formula 1 season, with his Red Bull team perhaps better placed to take on Mercedes than Ferrari.
Already, we have seen some great battles between Verstappen and Hamilton, notably in Monaco, Hungary and Brazil last year, and Max is certainly confident he can get the better of the Briton.
“Lewis is very good. He is definitely one of the best out there, but he’s not God,” he told Reuters on Monday.
“Maybe God is with him, but he is not God.”
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Verstappen then explained why he believes that is the case by arguing the aura Hamilton has built around him comes mostly from a lack of competition.
“It’s very car-dependent of course in Formula 1, when you can put the pressure on, then of course it’s a lot harder for the guy in the lead,” he said.
“If you never have pressure then you can always drive at 97% or 98% and you never make mistakes, or maybe one weekend out of 21 or 22.
“So if we start within 0.2s then you can really mount the pressure, of course I would like to start there because then it’s really on.”
If that is the case then Verstappen is also confident he has the operation to back him up in the garage and on the pitwall as he pointed to strategic successes Red Bull had over Mercedes in 2019.
“I’m looking forward to it because I know that when everything is good together, then as a team under pressure situations, like in Brazil for example or other difficult races like Germany, you can see that the team is really excelling compared to the others,” Max continued.
“So I’m also looking forward to when we get that fight and we are really close, then I’m pretty sure that we can be the better [team].”