F1 News: Former F1 Driver Rates Max Verstappen Above Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton

Gerhard Berger also goes on to pair Max Verstappen with Ayrton Senna.

Former F1 driver Gerhard Berger has made a huge claim that Max Verstappen and Ayrton Senna are the two best drivers he has seen in 50 years. While he also gave due credit to Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher for being "exceptional," it is evident that he rates the Dutch driver above the other two F1 legends. 

Verstappen won his first world championship title in 2021 and since then, there has been no stopping or slowing down for the 25-year-old Red Bull driver who won 15 Grands Prix last season. 

This year with just half the season over, Verstappen already has 12 race wins in his account. Not to forget the record he broke last weekend for the most number of consecutive race wins which currently stands at ten. 

That might just be one of the many records he could break during this year and there are high chances of that. If he wins three more Grand Prix, he will break the record for the maximum number of race wins in a season. And if that happens, he might very well beat his own 2022 record of the most points scored in a single season. 

I know records are just numbers that are meant to be broken but, in this scenario, they help to understand the magnitude of the dominance Verstappen currently holds in Formula 1, especially when he has another five years to go with Red Bull.

Of course, there is no guarantee that his performance and the current level of competition in F1 will remain the same over the years. 

Thus, that forms the basis of Berger's comments about Verstappen being up there with Senna. He told Kronen Zeitung:

“Verstappen and Senna are unique in the business – they are the two best I have seen in the last 50 years.

"Schumacher and Hamilton are also exceptional drivers. Of course, you should always look at the statistics, they are both fantastic.

"But Senna died early – and Verstappen is still young.”

Senna passed away in a tragic car crash at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. During his almost ten-year career, he achieved 65 pole positions, 80 podiums, 41 race wins, and 19 fastest laps. 

Coming to Berger's claims, some may agree with him while others would surely describe them as being a bit too far-fetched. However, the thing about racing legends is that they can't be compared because by doing so, you're killing their identity for what they really were, or are. 

It's like trying to fit them all in one bag and weighing them together to see which one's the heaviest, or lightest. You can't do that, especially when they all belonged to different time periods throughout the sport's history. The rules were different, the circuits were different, the engines were different and so were the cars.