Max Verstappen slams ‘jealous’ Lewis Hamilton over easy teammates dig

Max Verstappen will potentially break Sebastian Vettel's record of most consecutive wins tomorrow by taking a tenth straight victory.

Max Verstappen slams ‘jealous’ Lewis Hamilton over easy teammates dig

Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton (Via IMAGO)

Max Verstappen and Red Bull have had the integrity of their success doubted several times this season by their rivals. Mercedes legend Lewis Hamilton recently suggested that Verstappen’s lack of competition within his team makes his dominance less appreciable since Hamilton was paired up with some of the best drivers in F1 history during Mercedes’ dominant years. Verstappen recently hit back at Hamilton on these comments, calling him ‘jealous’ of his current success.

Verstappen said that for Hamilton to be giving such statements, he might be jealous of him as he claimed to be indifferent to such views. He said that Mercedes is having a hard time being in the back seat for once since they dominated the sport for a long time until 2021.

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“Maybe he’s [Hamilton] a little jealous of my current success. This kind of statement… he possibly thinks he’s winning something with that, but it makes no difference to me. I think Mercedes have a very hard time dealing with losing, after all these years of winning so much,” Verstappen is quoted by RacingNews365.

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Verstappen also added that Red Bull was focused on their development and appreciated Mercedes’ success during their dominant years. He said that Red Bull’s success is not affected by their rivals claiming it is not that special and they should deal with it themselves.

“At some point, you have to be realistic and then you have to be able to appreciate what other teams are doing. We did the same when they were dominant and we also said, ‘We have to work harder because we are not good enough’,” Verstappen added.

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Max Verstappen is optimistic about going into the Italian Grand Prix despite missing the pole position

Max Verstappen
Max Verstappen (Credits: Sky Sports)

In an unusual turn of events, Max Verstappen missed out on pole position in Monza to Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz by a mere one-tenth of a second. While many Red Bull fans fear that this is an early indication of the Monza Curse hitting Verstappen, he has revealed he is very optimistic about the car’s developments and is confident for tomorrow’s race.

Verstappen said he was happy with the car in qualifying after struggling with it throughout the practice sessions yesterday. He said the qualifying was very tight, and he is happy to start second in tomorrow’s race.

“It was good, we made some good improvements compared to yesterday. In qualifying, you could see that every qualifying session was very tight. I’m happy to be second today. It’s nice to see. We’ll try to win the race,” said Verstappen.

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