Verstappen: Mercedes made 'more of a step' than Red Bull in key area
The Dutchman believes Mercedes might be still hiding some performance in their car, despite their troubled start with the W14.
Verstappen suspects that Mercedes may have found more here than Red Bull, he explained in conversation with a select group of media.
"With us it just feels good in itself now and about Ferrari we have also been able to read that they had to scale back the engines last year," he said.
"At Mercedes I think they have also found something again. Of course everybody throws it on reliability, but there's just more performance coming out of it. We'll see. I definitely do think they have made a step. Maybe even more than us in terms of power, but in the end most of it has to come from the car itself."
Asked if Verstappen would be surprised if Aston Martin beats Mercedes this year, he replied, "It depends, of course. Mercedes has also brought a different rear wing, so it will be more efficient already."
"But I think Aston Martin has really built a good car. Also, with this new car, in the end it all matters a little less what you do in qualifying. If you go hard in the race, you'll be able to overtake. I am very curious. I always find it very difficult to gauge exactly where they are."
Still, Max does feel that things are going very well at Aston Martin. "When I look at Fernando's face when I talk to him, he's pretty optimistic and of course that's nice to see because at the end of the day, of course, you want more teams to be closer together."
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that's what I think everytime I watch onboards of Verstappen