Former F1 world champ believes Max Verstappen would 'smash' Lewis Hamilton in a Mercedes car

Former F1 world champion Nelson Piquet believes Max Verstappen would ‘smash’ Lewis Hamilton if he was driving for Mercedes. Piquet, who drove for Brabham, Williams, Lotus and Benetton in a race career that spanned 13 years, believes Hamilton has it too easy with Valtteri Bottas being the second Mercedes driver. “First of all, we have to consider F1 is a category with different cars, so it’s very difficult to make a direct comparison between two drivers if they are not on the same team,” he told Motorsport.com. “But if Max Verstappen were driving for Mercedes, I’m sure he would smash Lewis Hamilton.”

Piquet’s reasoning for his claim is that Verstappen is the more aggressive of the two drivers.

“Max is more aggressive. He may make mistakes more frequently due to this aggressiveness, but in my opinion, he’s better than Hamilton.

“Things are too easy for Hamilton to win it all with (Valtteri) Bottas by his side as a second driver.”

Give Hamilton credit: Verstappen

Verstappen has long been seen as a future world champion and is expected to be Hamilton’s main rival this year. He narrowly missed out on a win in the season opener in Bahrain.

Still thinking about this finish, one week on… ?#BahrainGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/WfDCeLq8gH

— Formula 1 (@F1) April 4, 2021

Yet Verstappen believes Hamilton must be credited as one of the greatest ever in the sport.

“Man, you know it’s super hard, but of course you have to give credit to Lewis,” he has said previously.

“[For] the way he has dealt with all the years, to always come back and be honoured and win that amount of races and championships. You definitely cannot go around Lewis.

“Of course, there are still a lot of other people in Formula 1, I think who are very good, very strong, and would have been very good in that car as well.

“But still, the way Lewis has won and also sometimes in tricky races – like last year in Turkey, to win that race, I think he did very well.

“Yeah, definitely he is one of the best ever in Formula 1.”