Red Bull's Max Verstappen says he can beat Lewis Hamilton in this year's world championship and can "mount a challenge to Mercedes".
Red Bull's Max Verstappen says he can beat Lewis Hamilton in this year's world championship and can "mount a challenge to Mercedes".
Hamilton will be eyeing his seventh Formula One title this season.
The 22-year-old Dutchman told Reuters, "Lewis is very good. He is definitely one of the best out there but he is not God. Maybe God is with him, but he is not God".
When asked if he could beat Hamilton, he said: "Yes. It is very car-dependent, of course."
Verstappen feels Hamilton could be vulnerable if put under pressure. "When you can put the pressure on, of course, it is a lot harder for the guy in the lead," Verstappen said.
"If you never really have pressure, you can drive at 97-98% and you never make mistakes, or maybe one weekend out of 21-22.
"Even if we start within 0.2secs, you can really mount the pressure and I would like to start straight away there because then it is really on.
"I know that when everything is put together, as a team, under pressure situations like in Brazil for example - but also other difficult situations like in Germany [where Verstappen won in the wet and Hamilton and Mercedes made a series of errors] - you can see that the team is really excelling compared to the others.
“I’m very much looking forward to it, everybody’s fired up and everybody’s very motivated. Coming off last year, in the end, we were very competitive,” said the Dutch driver.
Hamilton, 35, is chasing several records this season including Michael Schumacher’s 91 race wins.
“We really want to mount a challenge to especially Mercedes and I think we can do that,” Verstappen said, according to Reuters.
He had last month signed a contract extension with Red Bull to the end of 2023 and has a new English trainer and physio for 2020.
The new contract has taken away the hassle of being asked all the time about his future, removing another potential distraction.
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