Verstappen managed to win sprint race at Spa

Max Verstappen in Spa-Francorchamps

Windsor reveals: For this reason, Verstappen is better than Hamilton in this aspect

19:56, 11 Aug

byCas van de Kleut

Lewis Hamilton is having a very tough time in his Ferrari. Meanwhile, Max Verstappen is also regularly experiencing difficulties with his RB21, yet he is still third in the championship. Peter Windsor believes there is a clear reason for this, as he explained in a livestream on his YouTube channel.

In the livestream, a viewer pointed out to Windsor that they believed Hamilton handled 'bad cars' worse than Verstappen and Fernando Alonso. The analyst reacted: "That's right, but I would say because I don't think Lewis really had a bad car in any category in Formula One until 2022, and then he didn't have a bad car, he had a diabolical car that did things that he'd never ever experienced in his life. Kangaroo hopping down the straight, flick over steer, no grip, just a complete nightmare of a car."

Verstappen had a difficult car just before that period. The Dutchman struggled between 2016 and 2020 to compete for victories. He did this every year in the end, but often enough it was the case that the Red Bull Racing driver could not reach the podium in races.

Verstappen better than Hamilton for this reason

According to Windsor, that is also the reason Verstappen can handle a 'bad car' better: "Max had a year or two when the car wasn't capable of winning Grand Prix in Red Bull, engine-wise, and would often be driving beautiful races to finish fourth or fifth. I remember saying when Max gets a quick car, these are the races that are going to be the making of him. That's one of the reasons he is so good, because he does know what it's like to drive a car that is quite difficult, where you've got to take wing out of it in order to get some decent top speed."

According to Windsor, this is not the same case with Alonso: "I would say Alonso is better at driving damaged cars. I'm not sure about bad cars. He is good at driving bad cars. He's good at driving everything, Alonso. But particularly, Spur needs to be good at driving damaged cars. If everybody had to have one aspect of the aero taken off their car at the first pit stop, one front wing removed or a plane off the rear wing or one of those barge boards or whatever it is. Fernando Alonso would probably win every Grand Prix."