Light Shed On Verstappen's And Vettel's Unique Qualities By Tost

Sunday, 17 December 2023 at 09:00

Franz Tost discussed the qualities of the best two drivers he had ever coached, Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel.

Franz Tost has been a team principal of the AlphaTauri team for nineteen years and has had the pleasure of working with two of the best drivers to ever race in Formula One - Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel.

Tost has been recently asked to pick the best driver he has ever worked with, and he has named the two World Champions and there can't be any doubt about his choice in hindsight. But he also said:

"Sebastian now and Max Verstappen, they won so many championships that everybody thinks now 'OK, these were the best'"

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On the other the triple and four-time World Champions were not born the best. The former team principal explained one of the factors in their success has to be discipline.

"They were the best, no discussion about this. They were the best, from the talent, from the driving skills, especially from their passion. That’s very, very important. But also from their discipline. Both of them are really disciplined."

F1 World Champions must have a passion for the sport, and the Verstappen, for example, clearly has it. If the Dutchman isn't racing on the track, he races on the simulator at home all the time.

He is constantly working on improving himself, constantly challenging himself which makes him sharper, but what people don't see about the Dutchman or might not have seen about Vettel is the side that Tost described:

"That's the point, they were also quite innovative, which meant they studied other drivers, they knew exactly what was not so good last year, where they had to improve."

The team principal had the pleasure of working with seventeen different F1 drivers and saw firsthand how young, passionate rookies can turn into World Champions. He added:

"They were quite honest with themselves. They didn't tell this to the outside, but to them, they knew exactly where they had to work. And this was quite interesting to observe."