Berger: Senna was the Best F1 driver but Verstappen is better
Gerhard Berger changed his mind about the Best Formula 1 driver, he now believes Ayrton Senna is being surpassed by Max Verstappen as #1, igniting an old debate that will never go away, in any sport.
Verstappen, at 26, is hunting his fourth F1 title in the wake of the most dominant F1 campaign ever witnessed by the sport in 2023. Ahead of 2024, Max is already the outright favourite according to the latest Stake F1 betting odds and the RB20 has yet to break cover!
The tale of Berger and Senna’s relationship at McLaren, the duo teammates there for three F1 seasons from 1990 until 1992. Once the Austrian publically acknowledged that the Brazilian was better than him, while they shared the same pit garage, a legendary friendship between the pair blossomed. Until then Ayrton had few friends among his peers on the grid.
Berger has always maintained that Senna is F1’s best driver ever but, in his latest interview this past week with the Austrian website Krone.at, Berger at first said of Senna: “For me, he was the best there was. But if I just look at the statistics and the hard facts, then of course you have to put Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton there.
“I see it as a package and as a package, Ayrton Senna had, on the one hand, the sporting success, on the other hand, the cleverness and of course the charisma. The charisma was something very special because he was simply incredibly popular and was incredibly in demand. Of course, he also played the piano!” added the 64-year-old Austrian.
Berger: Max is a driver driving at the very limit and never makes mistakes
But then, during the interview, Berger made an unexpected admission: “I said before that Senna was the best driver of all time. I have to say, I think Max Verstappen is now even better than that. He has skills that I haven’t seen yet. ”
Berger is enthralled by what Verstappen does on race weekends, and sees the positive of his total dominance of the sport in recent years: “It’s also interesting to see that there is such perfection. On the one hand, the team didn’t have any technical failures, they didn’t miss any pit stops. Then, on the other hand, a driver driving at the very limit never makes mistakes.”
A big call by Berger that is sure to have Senna fans on the defensive. However, there is no one better qualified to make that assessment of a driver he shared a McLaren pit garage with (in harmony) for 48 GPs.
Run by Ron Dennis at the time, McLaren won four F1 titles during Berger’s spell, two for the team and the other two going to Senna in 1990 and 1991.
Today, Verstappen’s 2023 F1 record-breaking year was packed with faultless performances, with much in hand and total control serviced by the best F1 team in the sport, which Red Bull is right now, on all fronts. Alluding to that “package” Berger refers to, which he sees evident, in abundance, in the Triple F1 World Champion.
