Verstappen hits back at Hamilton: ‘Maybe he’s jealous of my success’ 

Max Verstappen has hit back at Lewis Hamilton after his great F1 rival said he had been “no more impressed” by the Red Bull driver than previous world champions.

Speaking to Sky Italy ahead of this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix, Hamilton questioned the pedigree of Verstappen’s teammates and claimed the Dutchman’s dominance has been “blown up much more” than his own spell of success with Mercedes.

“It’s actually interesting because I was running this morning and I was thinking about this,” Hamilton said.

“The narrative, that goes through the media… you know when I qualified half a second, six tenths ahead of Valtteri, they didn’t say the same thing as they say today when Max qualifies six tenths ahead of Perez – it’s blown up much more.

“And in my personal opinion, Valtteri, and actually all my team-mates, have been stronger than the team-mates that Max has had.

“Jenson [Button], Fernando [Alonso], George [Russell], Valtteri… Nico [Rosberg] – I’ve had so many.

“These guys have all been very consistent, and Max has not raced against anyone like that.”

When asked about the comments, two-time world champion Verstappen said he reckoned Hamilton is “jealous” of his current F1 success.

“Maybe he’s a little jealous of my current success? He may think he’s winning something with it, but it really doesn’t matter to me,” Verstappen was quoted as saying by Dutch outlets Formule1.NL and De Telegraaf. 

“You can keep shouting and screaming that it’s not that special what we’re doing right now, but you’d better be more concerned with yourself. Because that’s all you can influence.”

Verstappen, who could claim a record-breaking 10th consecutive victory at Monza, added: “I think they [Mercedes] have a very hard time dealing with loss. That’s kind of the problem when you’ve won everything for so many years in a row.

“But you also have to be realistic. If it’s not in it, then it’s not in it. And then, I think, you have to be able to appreciate what others are doing.

“We have always done that in the years that Mercedes was so good. We said to each other: we have to work harder, because we are not good enough compared to Mercedes.”