Max Verstappen challenges Lewis Hamilton as Red Bull ace replies to ‘bored’ fans

Max Verstappen has challenged Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton to put themselves in a position where they can compete for Grand Prix victories. The Dutchman has won back-to-back F1 world titles and is dominating the Drivers’ Championship once again this year after winning six of the first eight races.

Verstappen led from start to finish for the third consecutive race on Sunday as he won the Canadian Grand Prix ahead of Aston Martin star Fernando Alonso. The victory moved the 25-year-old 69 points clear of his Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez at the top of the F1 standings.

Meanwhile, Red Bull are 154 points ahead of Mercedes in the Constructors’ Championship standings. And Verstappen has insisted he wants rivals teams to give him a battle. “For sure I hope that more teams can get together, then at least even if you have a little issue or whatever or you can’t get the set-up fully in 100 per cent then there’s another team to win,” he explained.

Before Red Bull’s rapid progress following F1 rule changes ahead of last season, Mercedes had won eight consecutive Constructors’ Championships, with Ferrari also enjoying long spells of dominance in the past.

And Verstappen has admitted he is well aware that having one team winning all the time can take away some of the excitement in the sport. “I understand of course people get a bit bored if only one team is dominating,” the blockbuster star added. “We’ve seen it also at Mercedes, we’ve seen it with Ferrari in the past, we’ve seen it with Red Bull in the past.

“It’s nice sometimes to have good competition. Honestly, I enjoyed of course ’21 but I also enjoyed the way ’22 went. Of course in the beginning we had some reliability issues, the car was a bit heavy, but at one point the car was also really quite dominant at the end.”

In this year’s team standings, Mercedes, Aston Martin and Ferrari are all in the mix to be the second best in the paddock. And FIA director Nikolas Tombazis recently said he expects Red Bull’s dominance to eventually fade away.

“Putting Red Bull aside, everyone else is close and I think it’s only a matter of time before performance convergence is achieved,” the 55-year-old told Corriere della Sera. “Maybe it will be achieved in the next few months, maybe it will be early next year. Almost everyone is going towards the Red Bull technical concept, even Mercedes and Ferrari.”