Max Verstappen has demolished his most recent team-mates (Image: Getty)
has named as his best-ever F1 team-mate, insisting that he ‘learned the most’ from the eight-time Grand Prix winner. The two stars spent the better part of three seasons together between 2016 and 2018.
In 2025, Verstappen’s reputation as one of the greatest talents in F1 history is undisputed, but earlier in his career, there were some doubts about whether or not he had the temperament to compete consistently at the top level.
The Dutchman has demolished the likes of , and in recent times, but battles with the likes of and Ricciardo earlier in his career helped weld Verstappen into the driver that he is today.
Speaking to about the long line of team-mates he has partnered up with over the years, Verstappen said: “Definitely , I was able to learn the most from him. I absorbed a lot and incorporated it into my experiences.”
The praise for Ricciardo is well-earned. The popular Australian got the better of his young team-mate in 2016 en route to a P3 Drivers’ Championship finish, and he backed up this achievement in 2017, finishing 32 points clear of Verstappen.
The tables turned in 2018, though, and the Australian upped sticks and moved to midfield squad Renault, making room for Gasly’s ill-fated arrival. From this point onward, Verstappen developed his ‘team-mate killer’ reputation, and nobody has matched him since.
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Verstappen sees Daniel Ricciardo as his best-ever F1 team-mate (Image: Getty)
However, in 2025, a new challenger will take to the stage. At the end of last year, announced Liam Lawson as Perez’s successor, despite the New Zealander having just 11 Grand Prix starts under his belt.
According to team principal , the remit for Lawson is not to match Verstappen but simply to get close. He told talkSport: “We’re perhaps slightly different to other teams where we go: ‘Do you know what? is the most valuable asset in Formula One. He’s our lead driver. If you can get close to him, fantastic.’
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“But the reality is the expectation is for Max to win. A team like next year, for example, are going to have two drivers that are going to be taking points off each other, and which horse do you back? You have to back both of them, but that sometimes becomes divisive within a team. Different teams have different approaches.”
Verstappen, meanwhile, has no concerns that his inexperienced new team-mate will have a detrimental effect on his title challenge. “If we can get the car back to the front, the name in the other cockpit won’t matter,” he said.