Great competitors acknowledge when a competitor achieves something great.
And here they are arguing that it’s because Max has a bad teammate or whatever. Even then, Red Bull still has more wins in a row now than Mercedes ever did, so what’s their point?
I think Verstappen is a bit of a tool a lot of the time, but there's no denying his insane talent.
Wether it is greater than the likes of Vettel or Lewis at their peak, who's to say, we don't have a time machine to race young Lewis and young Vettel etc in identical cars and see who wins.
But to say that Verstappen is only winning so much because Perrez is bad or the car is good is just them deceiving themselves to sleep better I think.
Perrez is still #2 in the standings, Verstappen has barely made a mistake all season, and Red Bull are killing it with their performance and reliability. They're just doing everything right it seems, apart from overspending on catering once in a while.
Perez is on the same level as Stroll, who is being dominated in a similar fashion by Alonso. Max is good but Perez's poor performence is elevating his accomplishments.
Stroll had a few good years in the past where I was starting to believe he was an OK F1 driver, but these last few seasons he's just not there. He can drive but he just has no drive to become better.
Perez is FAR more motivated and has more racecraft, and probably more speed. The biggest issue with Perez is that he is trying to match Max and Max is just in another tier. Of course the car is made for Max and it doesn't help that Perez is refusing to compromise on setup. But I don't think there's a car out there that Max can't beat Perez in.
Same can be said for Hamilton & Bottas (and I say this as a massive Bottas fan).
Agreed on literally every count here. I think you've nailed it. Perez might not be Max, but he's at worst a mid-grid driver. Honestly, I'd rank him below only Max, Sainz, Leclerc, Hamilton, and maybe Norris. I'm not sure how I'd compare him to Alonso, but I think he's clearly better than the rest.
I think you're selling Perez short. I 100% agree he's not on Max's level but if Stroll didn't bring the money he did, noone in their right mind would put Stroll in a car over Perez.
When Perez was teamates with Stroll and Ocon he had similar performances to them. He wasn't a standout talent, think about how Russell performed against teammates at Williams, Sergio didn't have that.