Fernando Alonso spent the Dutch Grand Prix weekend being asked, once again, to name his toughest opponent. His answer at Zandvoort was Max Verstappen, and the grade attached to that answer is one no other rival has drawn out of him.
“I give Max a 9.9. Why not a 10? Because I’m convinced he has a weak spot somewhere. Everyone does. We just haven’t found his yet,” Alonso told Viaplay.
The verdict puts Verstappen ahead of Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton in Alonso’s private hierarchy of rivals. Alonso is one of the very small pool of drivers whose career has overlapped in earnest with both champions, having raced Schumacher through the German’s Ferrari years and Verstappen through his four championship seasons at Red Bull.
The mistakes that stopped coming
Alonso’s reasoning for the near-perfect score was that Verstappen’s early raw edges disappeared quickly and never came back.
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“When Max was seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, he had too much energy sometimes. He’d make a mistake, like entering the pit lane too fast. That’s normal at that age. But after his second or third season, you didn’t see that anymore,” he said.
“After that, it was just perform, perform, perform. He was exceptional and raised the bar for everyone. If you want to beat Max on track, you simply have to become better yourself.”
A verdict from the cockpit
Very few drivers on the current grid can make that call from inside a car. Alonso first raced Schumacher in 2001 and won back-to-back world titles with Renault in 2005 and 2006, ending Schumacher’s run of five consecutive drivers’ championships. He has shared the grid with Verstappen since 2015 and watched him take four titles between 2021 and 2024.
Norris wins as Verstappen crashes on lap one
The interview came on a weekend that did not go Verstappen’s way. He crashed out on the opening lap of the Dutch Grand Prix on 23 August after losing the rear of his Red Bull at the banked final corner. Lando Norris won ahead of Kimi Antonelli and George Russell, and Alonso started 18th and finished ninth for two points.
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Verstappen sits sixth in the drivers’ standings after 13 rounds, more than 100 points behind championship leader Antonelli. Alonso is 19th.
