Verstappen's Red Bull Confidence Dwarfs Hamilton's Mercedes Struggles Says Lawson

Max Verstappen is currently in a world of his own, which is the complete opposite of what Lewis Hamilton is experiencing, as he's struggling with his Mercedes.

When the Dutch driver entered the Formula One world in 2015, all he knew was seeing one driver, Hamilton, and one team, Mercedes, dominate almost every single race.

That has changed in recent years, as Verstappen is now a three-time World Champion, while the British driver has yet to win a race since 2021. On top of that, it's not only about being winless for the 39-year-old, as he's massively struggling with his car.

As he said himself, Hamilton is far from enjoying himself on the race track, and that's mostly because of his lack of confidence in his car, which he also discussed multiple times.

Liam Lawson, who got to drive for AlphaTauri (now RB) last season, observed this and discussed on the latest Sky Sports F1 Podcast how Verstappen's and Hamilton's confidence in the car differs.

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Not being confident in the car can easily be reflected in the lap time as well. While Mercedes may be able to be a bit more competitive than what Hamilton manages to extract from the car, it would be unwise for the seven-time World Champion to push the car somewhere where he doesn't feel comfortable with it.

At the end of the day, one of his main goals is to bring the car back home safely for the team, not only to avoid additional costs in the harsh reality of the budget cap but also to collect important data from every race.

That's completely the opposite for Verstappen, who, according to Lawson, manages to push the car because of his confidence. That results in incredible precision, which is then reflected in his speed.

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