Although he is only 27 years old, Max Verstappen has already been in Formula 1 for almost ten years, and during his career, he has changed several teammates. However, the Dutchman’s strength has allowed him to “destroy” everyone he has shared a garage with, starting from Carlos Sainz, then moving on to Pierre Gasly, Alexander Albon, and Sergio Perez.
In an interview with Blick, the four-time world champion revealed that the best teammate from whom he has learned the most was Australian Daniel Ricciardo. The two shared the same team from 2016 to 2018, before Daniel Ricciardo decided to move to Renault. Speaking about this, the Dutchman said: “Certainly with Daniel, I was able to learn more. I absorbed a lot, and thanks to him, I gained a lot of experience.”
The praise for Daniel Ricciardo is well-deserved, as looking at the results, in both 2016 and 2017, the Australian came out on top against Max Verstappen. However, in 2018, the trend reversed, and from that point onward, Max became a real “killer for teammates.”
In 2025, he will face a new challenge. His teammate will be rookie Liam Lawson, whose task will be to “defend” Max, meaning he will not be allowed to battle for the top of the driver standings. Regarding this, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner stated: “Maybe we are an unusual team, but what matters to us is that Liam gets as close as possible to Verstappen’s performance. Obviously, we expect Max to win, he is our first driver. A team like Ferrari next year, for example, will have two drivers who will take points off each other. They won’t know which horse to back, and they’ll need to support both, but this sometimes becomes a cause for division within a team.”
In contrast to Christian Horner, Max Verstappen does not fear that his new, inexperienced teammate will have a negative effect on his title challenge. The Dutchman stated: “If we manage to bring the car back to the front and be competitive, the name in the other seat won’t matter.”
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