Damon Hill saw Max Verstappen shoot out of the starting blocks as a ruthless racer during the Mexican Grand Prix. That is precisely what makes him so good, the 1996 world champion believes, receiving support from Johnny Herbert. According to him, Verstappen often drives on the edge, but nevertheless remains an honest racer.
Hill mentions that Hamilton himself has already said it: you have to be prepared to fight hard against Verstappen. ‘I mean, Lewis said how to race Max. He said: You have to be ready, that guy is ruthless. We haven’t really talked about Max yet, but here he is,” Hill says in the podcast Stay On Track from The Race. After discussing the numbers one and two in the championship with Herbert, it is a logical step to number three.
The Briton outlines how Verstappen once again showed why he is such a feared opponent, although it was not enough for first place in the Latin American country. “He has a car with which he can do it,” the Briton emphasizes. ‘They (Red Bull Racing, ed.) have done something and he is certainly on the rise. But he didn’t get the most out of it, no pun intended.‘Another driver managed to achieve this. “In Mexico, Lando did that,” Hill notes.
According to Hill, Lando Norris had an almost perfect race in Mexico, while Verstappen was slightly less dominant than the weeks before. Yet the former champion remains impressed by Verstappen and calls him the man to keep an eye on in the coming race weekends. “We have the race in Brazil coming up, which is a sprint weekend,” says Hill. “And he is often quite good there,” Hill seems to see the Dutchman as a contender in São Paulo.
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The Brit emphasizes that Verstappen often makes the difference in sprint races thanks to his mentality and his willingness to take risks. “He’s known for using, well, I guess, questionable driving techniques to keep people behind him or overtake them,” said Hill, who seemed to hesitate for a moment when describing Verstappen’s style of racing. However, he emphasizes that he learned to drive in a completely different way.
Hill’s background is in two-wheel racing, while most drivers nowadays start in the karting circuit. “I haven’t done karting, so no, this is a driving style that I didn’t understand, because I come from motorcycle racing, and people don’t just ram you there, because you just as easily ram yourself off the track,” the Brit explains. ‘But when overtaking on a motorcycle you have much more space. There is more space. You don’t really have to push people into the grass.’
Hill now understands it better. “In car racing it’s difficult to get two cars to take a turn together,” he explains. “And what we saw in Mexico, thinking about that comment from Lewis about being ruthless, when Max came back and went deep in turn one and they collided a little bit. I don’t think there was a penalty for Max,” adds Herbert, who shares the opinion of the stewards.
Although the 1996 champion acknowledges that Verstappen is not uncontroversial, he believes that his driving style fits within the boundaries of top-level racing. Hill sees the moment in question as the perfect example of what racing should be: on the edge, but without any punishment. “Yes, I thought that was racing, that’s what racing is to me,” he concludes.
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