Max Verstappen Warns Of Mercedes Upgrades: "There's Simply More Performance"

Verstappen believes reliability upgrades to the Mercedes and Ferrari cars have brought more power.

Max Verstappen, a prominent name in the F1 world with two world championships to his name, has recently expressed his opinion about the upgrades made by Mercedes and Ferrari for the 2023 season. Verstappen believes the German outfit has more performance, but he's interested to see how Ferrari have adjusted their drag and downforce setup.

Mercedes has always been a strong competitor in the Formula 1 world, winning seven consecutive constructors' championships. However, the team struggled in the 2022 season with porpoising, downforce, and drag - basically everything an F1 car shouldn't be struggling with. Max took home an easy championship with Mercedes clinching third in the Constructor Standings. 

Ferrari on the other hand had, arguably, the best car of the season last year. While Red Bull had more straight-line speed, the Maranello machinery was more than capable in the corners. But strategic errors and poor reliability let the team down, only allowing them to take second place with driver Charles Leclerc also taking second place in the Driver Standings behind Verstappen.

"At Ferrari they have focused very much on that of course, to be faster on the straights," Verstappen told the press. "But then of course you lose out in the corners. So I think time will tell what the right decision is. Obviously, you want to go quick on the straights, but you also need to have grip in the corners, so you have to find a bit of a balance in that."

Discussing further the updates brought to the season this year by Ferrari and Mercedes, the Dutch driver wonders whether the reliability fixes carried out by the Italian and German teams have brought more power to the table.

"Everything feels pretty good with us. I think Ferrari had to dial it down quite a bit last year, Mercedes will probably have found something again.

"Everyone claims it's for reliability, but there's simply more performance coming out of it.

"We will see. I definitely think they have made a step, maybe even a bit more than us in terms of power, but in the end most of it still has to come from the car itself."

With Free Practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix starting today, we'll be able to see more indicative performance coming from our drivers.