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Lewis Hamilton has said that Max Verstappen barely broke a sweat all season. The 2023 season was one of utter dominance from Red Bull from the first race. The car was just too good, and the competition didn't have a hope.
As a result, Verstappen ended the season with a record 19 wins and didn't face much competition from anyone. Hamilton said that the Dutchman was almost chilling at the front of the grid and always had things under control.
Even in Austin where he challenged Verstappen for the win, the Mercedes driver felt that the Red Bull had a couple of tenths in store if needed. In a conversation with The Race talking about the Red, Hamilton said:
“I don’t think we have ever really truly pushed them … maybe Austin we were the closest, but even then I think they still always had a tenth or two on us at the bare minimum.
"You go through lap times and some of the data from Max, and you can see he is chilling at the front more often than not. I don’t think he has broken a sweat during the year."
He added:
"I think he was just able to control it, and when you are in that position, when you have performance and can back off, the tyres go longer, and you are in a sweet spot, and it’s amazing to be in that place.”
Lewis Hamilton compares Red Bull to his Mercedes in 2020
Lewis Hamilton compared the Red Bull of the 2023 season to how his Mercedes was in 2020 when everything was firing on all cylinders. That season, the team lost just three races as Hamilton won his seventh world title.
The Englishman said:
“You watch the Red Bull, and it does everything well. It looks very similar to my 2020 car, characteristic-wise. Super-stable. They are firing on all cylinders.
"It looks like it’s in that kind of window, like we used to have, which, for a driver, is a dream because then you can really extract your own personal abilities to the max."
Lewis Hamilton hasn't won a race for two years, the longest winless period of his F1 career. There have been questions about his future, but it remains to be seen how he approaches the next few seasons.
