Max Verstappen has suggested that he would never pair two top young drivers together if he were to act as an F1 team boss, with the Dutchman arguing that such a strategy is “not sustainable” and can “break up” the squad in the long run.
During a discussion on the Pelas Pistas Podcast alongside Gabriel Bortoleto, Verstappen reflected on the advantages of a line-up like Bortoleto has at Audi next to the veteran Nico Hulkenberg, as he explained why he feels this works better than having two names at their peak together.
“It’s not ideal,” the Red Bull driver said about putting two top youngsters alongside each other in a team. ”I think [it shows] if you look at the best partnerships in the past [in terms] of how to win championships, Team and Driver.
“For a team also, I think that stress is not always what you want, and when you have the same age, I think honestly for me… You know who does that really well in football is [Real] Madrid.
“I’m a Barcelona fan, but Madrid does a very good job at having a squad, a starting 11, current, amazing, but making sure that once the older guys are at their end, to immediately replace them with a good young talent that can fill the gap.
“So that’s what I think you need to try to achieve in a way in Formula 1 as well, that you have one older guy that is at his peak or close to going over the peak, that immediately you have the other guy step in to make sure that you don’t also as a team go backwards, to make sure the other driver’s also there to take over in a sense.”
In terms of the impact of having two of the best drivers together in a line-up, Verstappen said: “They will always try to mess with each other and, at the end of the day, even if the team is very successful now, eventually it will break it up, and I think you will see that happening very soon in Formula 1 as well with the current scenario.”
The four-time World Champion went on to detail why he would not create such a pairing as a team boss.
“I’m more worried about the internal fight that you create, and people will leave,” Verstappen explained. “If it’s the driver, very important people up top… If it’s such a mess between the drivers, you create a two-sided garage. And at one point, it doesn’t matter how successful you are, it will break it up. It will create problems eventually.
“You can deal with it one year, quite intense, maybe two years, but it’s not sustainable for me personally. If you’re not fighting for championships, it’s less of a problem. There’s not really high stakes.
“At the end of the day, you really see the true colours of people when you fight for championships, but it’s very tough and if I would be a team boss I would never do that, risk two drivers fighting like that.”
When asked what his dream line-up would be if he could select from any driver in the sport’s history, Verstappen responded: “It might sound a bit controversial, but if you would have to have them drive the current car, they would struggle.
“In sport, people evolve, sports evolve, become more professional, and that’s why I think it’s always very important to just leave the greats in their era because they were the best in their era with what they knew, what the world knew, and that’s why I find it very unfair when people ask me this.
“First of all, who do you think is the greatest? For me it’s impossible to answer because every generation or era had their own greatest driver.”
Despite this, Verstappen conceded that there are certain moments in the past that he would like to have the opportunity to observe more closely.
“You can ask the question of who would you like to see, if it would be interesting to see how they would be working at their prime,” the Dutch racer said. “For example, I think it would be quite cool to see Michael [Schumacher] in his Ferrari days, be in there and observe how he was with everyone, and is there something to learn.
“Stuff like that for me, and at the same time you could argue, would you want to be in the [McLaren] team when Ayrton [Senna] was fighting with [Alain] Prost? Probably not, but at the same time they were winning and dominating as a team, so you learn, and I think it’s just very interesting to be a part of.”
