Max Verstappen lauded after Imola win: “He’s slightly better than the rest, isn’t he?”

1996 F1 world champion Damon Hill has heaped praise on Max Verstappen following his impressive victory at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

Verstappen narrowly beat Lando Norris at Imola to take his fifth victory of the campaign.

It was arguably his most impressive performance of the year so far, particularly given McLaren’s outstanding pace at times this weekend.

Verstappen stormed to pole when McLaren looked like they were the favourites, while Norris’ race pace on the hard tyre at the end of the race was slightly superior.

Reflecting on Verstappen’s performance, Hill feels that Verstappen made the difference after Red Bull “hadn’t given him a dominant car.”

“He is paid a lot of money. He should be working hard,” Hill said on Sky Sports’ F1 broadcast.

“Those ones provide more satisfaction. He knows that he won that race, he got pole position. They hadn’t given him a dominant car.

“He’s slightly better than the rest, isn’t he? He had to use that talent to win this race.

“Great to see Lando as well. Somehow the stars are aligning for this to be an interesting rivalry between these two, this season.”

Former W Series driver Naomi Schiff noticed Verstappen’s “elation” after the race, something that hasn’t been common during Red Bull’s era of dominance over the last few years.

“The sound of Lando’s frustration, and Max’s elation, goes to show that this battle is well and truly on,” she commented.

“It’s the happiest we’ve heard Max all year. They’ve been far too dominant for far too long and it’s great to see them under a little bit of pressure. Hats off to Max as well. At the end, he was under a lot of pressure. Lando was closing in on him.

“With the battery emptying he was having to do things on a steering wheel himself, in that moment, with Lando being in DRS. That’s what we want to see.

“At the beginning of the race we thought: ‘Is he going to run away with it?’ With two more laps, we would have seen them battling it out.”

Hill added: “It brings out the best of them. Like squeezing oranges, you’ve got to squeeze hard to get the good bits out! You could see Lando’s focus was much more intense.

“You could see him using the track. This is why I turned on F1 to watch."