Verstappen: Combo of Senna and Schumacher?

[chunterer]

The more I see of Max in and out of the car, the more he becomes a combination of Ayrton and Michael!

The guy appears to have many traits of both drivers.

Anyone else agree?

[Akrapovic]

Well he certainly has the "I'm going to punch the other driver in the face" attitude of both.

I'd say he has traits of both, but he hasn't managed to round off the corners of those traits just yet. It's all fine and well being ruthless, but you have to know when you can be and when to cut your loses. Max is still getting there with that, but I'm sure he will get there.

Brundle had a great interview about Senna in the early days. About how Senna would throw the car down the inside in an insane move, and if you moved out of the way then he knew you'd do it every time. If you didn't move, you had an accident and Senna wouldn't try it on you again.

Senna did those tactics in his pre-F1 days. Max hasn't had enough pre-F1 days to really flesh that out. So he's doing it in F1 now. So I've doubt he will get there, and he certainly has traits of these drivers, but he has to them mould these traits into something more productive.

[S griffin]

He definitely is a big threat for the future. He needs to smooth out some of the rough edges, because he is definitely Lewis' big threat for the future. He definitely has that edgy side that Senna and Schumi had. It remains to be seen if that will always be the case or if he'll do less of it now

[chillibowl]

still early in his journey but first thought for me is that it remains to be seen if he has the work ethic of Schumi. Senna, i believe, had a similar approach of pouring over every detail to see where advantages could be found.

to be honest though, im not sure what Max is like in the garage or with his mechanics.

[EffectiveSprinkles]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Brundle had a great interview about Senna in the early days. About how Senna would throw the car down the inside in an insane move, and if you moved out of the way then he knew you'd do it every time. If you didn't move, you had an accident and Senna wouldn't try it on you again.

Sounds like Ricciardo to me!

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

still early in his journey but first thought for me is that it remains to be seen if he has the work ethic of Schumi. Senna, i believe, had a similar approach of pouring over every detail to see where advantages could be found.

to be honest though, im not sure what Max is like in the garage or with his mechanics.

A DC story. Early 1994 senna had an accident during testing and hurt his back and had to sit out s few days. DC completed the testing in his place. Senna stuck around in every single brief to see what was said and work out his own thoughts from DCs feedback. Compared with Nigel who would “bu**er off to the golf course”.

[S griffin]

Senna was the ultimate pro to the end

[Compromised]

Both world champions, whereas max only has a few wins just like such and such and whosit....

MS and AS won with their ferocious competitiveness helping. For Max it only seems to hinder him, like he doesn't actually need to drive that way to win

[E.B]

I find it amusing that anyone can compare Max to the likes of Senna and Schumacher at this stage of his career.

Max has already competed in over half of Senna's career total of races, and has yet to show anything more than a lot of potential. A handful of wins.

At the stage in his career Max is at Senna had had just one season at McLaren but had already notched up more wins than Max has podiums, and had prior to joining McLren already notched up more wins than Max has currently. Prior to joining McLaren Ayrton had already notched more podiums than Max currently has amassed. Four years into his career, whilst still at Lotus, despite those four years consisting of far fewer races than Max has had in his 4 years, Ayrton had more wins and more podiums than Max has in total.

Max has potential to be compared to the greats, but at this stage of his career he is a long way off of being compared to legends.

[S griffin]

Give Max time, he's clearly on the up and next season, if the Honda engine is up to it, he could really shine

[steve_r]

Ferrari and Mercedes would surely sign him up in an instant if they could, and he would then be in a battle for the WDC. Instead he has signed up with Red Bull Honda until 2020. More wins are of course inevitable, but will this car and engine combination give him a realistic WDC shot?

Senna was not only ruthless in the car, he was a ruthless negotiator out of the car, hence managed to land himself drives in McLaren and Williams (which were the class of the field at the time), instead of loyally sticking with his first team.

[EffectiveSprinkles]

Originally Posted by E.B

I find it amusing that anyone can compare Max to the likes of Senna and Schumacher at this stage of his career.

Max has already competed in over half of Senna's career total of races, and has yet to show anything more than a lot of potential. A handful of wins.

... in an era with extreme domination never seen before in F1. If you want to compare you have make it an honest comparison. If you compare this way Alonso is nowhere near as good as Hamilton while we all know that's unfair.

[GT6]

Not sure Max can be compared to either, yes he is a young man with talent and desire to win but lets see where he is in 4 or 5 years before making comparisons with other people, these sort of things have been done to other drivers and then another new darling comes along and they sink back into the also ran ranks.

[greentrumpet]

We only have one season to accurately compare them, 2007, Hamiltons rookie year where he matched Alonso for wins and points. Hamilton is a far more complete package now.
Max is fast and has attitude but needs to use his brain, then we might get a clearer idea.

[S griffin]

As I said get rid of some of those rough edges and he’ll be there