Jacques Villeneuve has made it clear: Max Verstappen is not the best driver in the history of Formula 1. According to the former world champion, the four-time world champion is indeed a ‘pure racer’, but ‘not better than the very good drivers from the past’. “He is alone now, so he stands out.”
Who is the best Formula 1 driver of all time in the 75-year history of the sport? Ask a group of Formula 1 fans, and chances are you’ll find yourself in a heated debate with no undisputed answer. Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark, Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher, and Lewis Hamilton: they are all icons that many will point to as the best ever, or at least as the best of their respective eras.
In recent years, Max Verstappen has been solidifying his place in the history books. With four consecutive world championships, the Dutchman is setting record after record. And then there are those magical moments – such as the rain race in Brazil last year, where Verstappen drove from P17 to victory – where his talent captivates the audience.
However, former world champion Jacques Villeneuve does not believe that Max Verstappen is exceptional. “If you look at the past, in the era of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, you had five drivers like Max every year,” he says in a conversation with RacingNews365. “Now there are many good drivers, where there used to be a few extremely good drivers and a lot of good drivers. Max is not better than the very good ones from the past. He is alone now, so he stands out. He makes a difference. He is a pure racer, and there are not many of those left these days.”
Stable Cars
The son of Gilles Villeneuve, the apple of Enzo Ferrari’s eye, believes that drivers in the current era are less skilled than their predecessor. “At the moment, an average driver can look acceptable,” says Villeneuve. “If you look at the past, an average driver would be two seconds off the pace. Now an average driver will be half a second behind.”
According to Villeneuve, this is due to ‘the way the cars are driven’. “They are very stable cars,” he explains, “and also, once you are at racing speed, they slow down a lot to work, to keep the tires and everything under control. So it is simply a different generation of F1 drivers, with a different kind of cars.”
