Verstappen’s rivals can beat him when cars are “more equal”

Max Verstappen clinched his fourth consecutive world championship last weekend but rival Carlos Sainz Jnr said the second half of the season showed he is beatable.

The Red Bull driver built up a convincing lead early in the season, taken seven wins from the first 10 rounds. However the team’s rivals put them under more pressure as the season went on and Verstappen has only won one of the dozen rounds since then.

Sainz said Verstappen’s championship win proved he had been the best driver of the year. However he said the more competitive second half of the championship showed his rivals can compete at the same level as him.

“As much as I think Max has done an incredible job this year, it just shows in the second half of the season, eight drivers within a tenth [of a second] of each other, we could all beat him week in, week out,” said Sainz.

“He was extremely good at dominating with a dominant car and extremely good at not making mistakes the second half of the season. And that’s what’s given him, for me, driver of the year and the championship. But the second half of the season just shows that when we are all in equal, more of an equal machinery, we can all go up against each other and make each other’s life difficult.”

Drivers find it easier to avoid errors when they do not face close competition from their rivals, said Sainz. “Everyone starts making mistakes when they’re under pressure and everyone starts complaining about their car and everyone starts complaining in the media about their car.

“It’s all about pressure management and not having that margin. Whenever you don’t have a two, three tenths margin on your nearest rival or your team mate, suddenly pressure ramps up and everyone is human.”

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However Verstappen believes his performance last year, when Red Bull dominated the championship and he won 19 out of 22 rounds, is under-appreciated.

“Last year I had a dominant car but I always felt that not everyone appreciated what we achieved as a team, winning [grand prix] 10 in a row,” he said. “Of course our car was dominant, but it wasn’t as dominant, I think, as people thought it was.

“That’s for sure my best season I will always look back at, because even in places where maybe we didn’t have the perfect set-up, we were still capable, because in the race, our car was always quite strong, to…