Why Ayrton Senna’s former teammate believes Max Verstappen has an “advantage” over the Brazilian F1 legend

It was a season that mimicked McLaren’s 1988 season when Ayrton Sena and Alan Prost obtained 15 victories out of 16 possible races, although Red Bull’s victory percentage with the RB19 was higher: 95% compared to 93% for the MP4/4.

Although Verstappen only managed nine wins in 2024, it was one of his toughest seasons after facing McLaren’s Lando Norris in a title fight. Verstappen broke two records previously held by Senna and Lewis Hamilton.on the way to winning his fourth title.

When talking about Verstappen on the Pelas Pistas podcast, journalist Tom Clarkson noticed something Gerhard Berger he once told him when he compared Verstappen to Senna.

Gerhard Berger explains why Max Verstappen is better than Ayrton Senna

one of Verstappen’s victories against Norris this season at Imola it arrived just hours after participating in a 24-hour simulation race with the Redline team. It was an impressive victory given that I was awake in the middle of the night, although Red Bull then told Verstappen that he was not allowed to do late sessions..

Berger believes this extra simulator practice helps set Verstappen apart from the rest by making him a better racer.

“I had a very interesting conversation with Gerhard Berger about Max. “I was interviewing him at his house in Austria and he has a room with all his racing memorabilia, and the only driver’s helmet he has besides his own is Max Verstappen,” Clarkson said.

“That caught my attention and I said ‘Why Max?’ and said “I think Max is amazing” and then said “Actually, I think he might be better than Ayrton” which is a big statement given that they were teammates.

“Then he said: ‘It’s not a question of talent, I don’t think Max has more talent, it’s the racing simulation.’ It wasn’t an option for Ayrton, but if you are a racing driver and every day you make a race start and every day you are into simulation, repetition and muscle memory, you will become a better racing driver as often as you do. Max does. So he thinks that gives him an advantage over Senna.”

Max Verstappen was lucky that no rival dominated F1 during Red Bull’s fall

As Norris emerged as Verstappen’s main title threat, McLaren looked unstoppable as Red Bull began to suffer problems.

The team took the wrong development direction, with Red Bull breaks one of the ‘golden rules’ of this current generation of cars with the RB20.

READ MORE: Red Bull driver Max Verstappen’s life outside of F1 from net worth to girlfriend

Former F1 driver Alex Wurtz says Verstappen is ‘lucky’ that none of Red Bull’s rivals dominatedas McLaren also faced competition from Ferrari and Mercedes in the middle of the year.

He would go on to achieve a feat not seen in 40 years when he won the title with the third best car of the year, which Damon Hill believes it is a statistic that “says it all” about Verstappen.

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