Max Verstappen was once again in a league of his own in the Bahrain Grand Prix with Red Bull, but would he have won regardless with another car? According to Enrique Scalabroni, speaking to Pit-Talk, the Dutchman in a Ferrari, for example, would have finished first or second at the finish line…
Formula 1 will have a single and undisputed dominator again this year, and that is Max Verstappen. Or, to be more precise, it will be the Verstappen-Red Bull combination that will continue to sweep through this championship. Barring incredible events… Maybe the Dutchman won’t win all 24 GPs, but the fourth F1 title should be a stroll for him. The RB20 in Max Verstappen’s hands is one thing, in Sergio Perez’s hands, it seems to be a different car. A more “human” Red Bull in the hands of the Mexican…
But the spontaneous question that arises is this: Would Verstappen win in F1 even with another team? Argentinian race car designer, technical director, and team racing boss, Enrique Scalabroni, addressed the topic in a recent discussion for the Pit-Talk’s podcast. The Argentine engineer stated that Max Verstappen last Sunday in Bahrain, with a Ferrari or a McLaren, would have finished in the top two positions. In the past, Enrique Scalabroni had asserted how the Dutchman manages to make a difference on the track…
“In this race, we saw what Verstappen did with Red Bull. But if he had raced with a Ferrari or a McLaren, he would have finished in the top two positions. Because, for me, the big difference today is not Red Bull, it’s Max Verstappen, for how he manages the race. It is a situation where Verstappen at the moment, resembles the great drivers of the past who could intimidate opponents even before the start of the GP…” – he pointed out.
“A bit like Cassius Clay in the ring, who, by saying a few words before the fight to opponents, was already sure that others were in crisis, with fear. This is what he (Verstappen) has created, and he created it not only for the drivers but also for the team managers, etc. Because only Red Bull is always mentioned as a car superior to others, and that’s it…” – said Enrique Scalabroni, who joined the Maranello team as chassis and aerodynamics Chief Designer in September 1989.
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“But then we have to compare Red Bull in the hands of Verstappen and Red Bull in the hands of Perez. The difference between Verstappen and Perez is evident even in qualifying. And we saw that if there had only been Perez with Red Bull, he wouldn’t have won the race. Or he would have won after fighting with opponents with a minimal gap…”
After all, the numbers speak for themselves: Max Verstappen has made the difference in recent years with Red Bull. With Perez as the lead driver (without the Dutchman on the team, to be clear), Red Bull from 2021 to today would have won only one championship. That of 2023, since the Mexican finished second behind Max Verstappen in the final standings.
