F1, Max Verstappen rages at Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton

New ironies about the ancient rival for the title.

Max Verstappen did not miss a chance to send a new dig at Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes. He did so at the turn of the Belgian Grand Prix weekend, in which his Red Bull (net of penalties) still proved far more competitive than the Anglo-German car. And the world champion pointed this out, in an interview with ‘De Telegraaf’ on Sunday.

“The new technical directive has turned out to be very, very, very bad for us,” the Dutchman joked about the anti-porpoising intervention introduced by the FIA after the mobilization especially of Mercedes. Then Verstappen insisted, “I had no doubt that the novelty would change Red Bull’s competitiveness very little. I don’t know if it’s the same for Ferrari, but the fact that Mercedes is struggling at Spa doesn’t surprise me.”

“This year they have always had problems on top speeds, so it could be expected that they would struggle at Spa. I will admit, however, that I probably did not imagine such a wide gap,” Verstappen concluded about Mercedes.