RacingJean Alesi says Max Verstappen’s sharp words are a push, not an attack, and that the Red Bull driver is “really struggling” in Formula 1’s new era. In an exclusive interview with RacingNews365, the former Ferrari racer argued Verstappen’s comments are being misread while the pressure now falls on the team’s engineers. He also pointed to Suzuka qualifying and suggested the current car traits may even punish the fastest drivers.
“Absolutely. He is pushing the team. It doesn't mean that you are against the team,” Jean Alesi, former Formula 1 driver, said in an exclusive interview with RacingNews365. Alesi added that Verstappen cannot sit in a press conference and say “my team is fantastic, my car is fantastic, everything is perfect,” and must instead be direct about needs. “The engine has to be like that, the aero at the moment is this direction, we have to change the direction,” he said, stressing “is not a critique. It's a message for improvement.”
Alesi set that stance inside the technical picture of this season. “Max is struggling a lot at the moment. Really struggling,” Jean Alesi, former Formula 1 driver, said in an exclusive interview with RacingNews365. He pointed to the “current system” and how teams use the throttle, saying drivers have “less electric power,” then questioned whether this flips the usual order. “The fast drivers are more in trouble than the other ones?” he asked. Using Suzuka as an example, Alesi said Verstappen and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc “have been faster in every corner, but slower at the end of the lap time” in qualifying.
With Verstappen speaking plainly about what the car needs, Alesi said the next steps must come from the factory. “The maximum he can do now is just to stay quiet and to let the engineers make the improvements. It's the only thing he can do,” Jean Alesi, former Formula 1 driver, said in an exclusive interview with RacingNews365. He framed the Dutchman’s honesty as part of the job, not a shot at Red Bull.
Alesi also praised how Verstappen has changed on track, recalling the flashpoint years of his fights with Lewis Hamilton. “The aggressiveness with which he fought against Lewis” looked like he “wanted to jump on him,” Jean Alesi, former Formula 1 driver, said in an exclusive interview with RacingNews365. “Now he has now become a real fighter. He makes overtakes, but he doesn't pull out his guy,” Alesi added, calling him “the most incredible driver on track.”
Asked where Verstappen sits among the greats, Alesi drew a line between eras. “He is the number one, but in the whole history? No, because you can't compare Ayrton Senna, you can't compare Juan Manuel Fangio, you can't compare Tazio Nuvolari… You know, the machine, the risk, everything was different,” Jean Alesi, former Formula 1 driver, said in an exclusive interview with RacingNews365. “But from this new generation of drivers, let's say the 2000s drivers, he is, for me, the best.”