Ferrari team principal Frédéric Vasseur praised Red Bull’s Max Verstappen for his outstanding record-breaking season as the 2023 campaign concluded in Abu Dhabi.
At the start of the year it quickly became apparent that Red Bull would be the dominant constructor in 2023, which meant the title fight would come down to the reigning champion, Verstappen, and teammate Sergio Pérez. The Dutchman emerged triumphant, going on to completely dominate the season, achieving a record-breaking 19/22 wins.
Photo Credit: Red Bull Content Pool
Speaking to the media during the final race weekend of the season, Vasseur praised Verstappen for his strong, consistent performances, admitting that the Red Bull driver was in a league of his own in 2023.
“He did a mega season in which he was fighting with Checo for the first two or three events and then he was on another planet,”
“Clearly, he didn’t make a mistake this season. I think even when he struggled in qualifying in Jeddah it was due to an issue.
“He was always there, always taking good starts with no contact. The only one was Vegas, but I think getting a bit closer to him, we don’t want to say we are putting him under pressure because it’s not true,” Vasseur continued.
“[In Abu Dhabi] he was not under pressure. But he was probably a bit more under pressure today than he was in Zandvoort when there was rain.”
He also praised him for always starting at the front in spite of the tight nature of the field.
Nevertheless, Vasseur added that Verstappen isn’t infallible, and can be pushed into making mistakes if he finds himself under pressure from other teams and drivers during race weekends.
“There is no doubt about the fact that he dominated the season, the only issue for us is that, like everybody, he will make more mistakes when he is under pressure.
“Nobody was able to put him under pressure this season except the last two or three events or Carlos in Singapore.
“It’s where he started to make some mistakes or Red Bulls started to make some mistakes in terms of set-up.
“We were too far away to put this kind of pressure on him [in Abu Dhabi],” Vasseur concluded.
Mercedes’s Toto Wolff echoed this sentiment, stating that Verstappen is the only driver who understood how to extract the maximum performance out of the 2023 tyres.
Wolff admitted that he was baffled by the performance swings between teammates across various teams all throughout the year—he chalked this inconsistency up to the Pirelli tyres.
“It is just difficult to comprehend that good drivers in various teams have these oscillations in performance,” Wolff said.
“You’ve seen it this weekend with Sainz and Leclerc, you’ve seen it with George and Lewis, and Oscar and Lando, and the obvious one is Pérez and Verstappen.
“Pérez is not a second slower than Max, so what is that?
“Because we have seen it swinging in both directions, and fundamentally, I think all around it is the tyre grip.
“If you are able to kind of have it in a sweet spot, a stable platform that you start to work with at the beginning of the weekend, then you can extract performance.
“If you are not, there’s just no performance, you’re falling off the cliff, literally,” Wolff explained.
“I have no explanation for it, and the only one this year who has understood how to drive these tyres is Max.”
