Verstappen: "Animal" Alonso deserves F1 victory if Red Bull trips up

The Dutchman looks on course to take his third world championship this season with Red Bull in a class of its own right now. 

Its advantage has opened up the prospect of the Milton Keynes-based team taking victory in every race, a feat that has never been achieved in the history of F1. 

Verstappen has played down the chances of that happening though, as he thinks it too much to expect Red Bull not to trip up at some point. 

Asked ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix which driver he would like to see take the top step of the podium if Red Bull missed out, he was clear that Alonso was his preferred option. 

“Fernando. I like him,” said Verstappen. “He's a real racer, and I think he deserves it.  

“He never gave up. You can see he loves the sport, and sometimes you think ‘Jesus’, after so many years of having a car which was only capable of driving in the midfield, maybe you lose a bit of that love. 

“But he's a real racer. He's an animal. So yeah, if you ask me, one driver who I would like to see win a race this year, it is Fernando.” 

Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin F1 Team, on the drivers' parade

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

While Verstappen is enjoying his spell of dominating F1, he says that recent claims of wanting a better battle for the win was genuine. 

"I think it's nice sometimes to have good competition, honestly,” he explained. “I enjoyed, of course, 2021. But I also enjoyed the way 2022 went. 

"Of course, in the beginning, we had some reliability issues, and the car was a bit heavy but at one point, the car was also really quite dominant to the end.  

“But for the sport in general, I understand of course people get a bit bored if only one team is dominating. So I hope that more teams can get together so that if you have a little issue, or you can't get the set-up fully at 100%, that there is another team to win.” 

But while he comes into each weekend anticipating being able to take victory, he said at no point had success become ‘boring’. 

“No,” he said.  “This is much better than anything else.” 

Asked if it was harder to stay motivated in F1 without a serious rival pushing him, Verstappen said the opposite was true.  

“For me, it's probably even more motivation like this because you know that you have a winning car. 

“When you sometimes come to weekends and you know maybe P5 or whatever is the best, I mean that's still very good, but it's probably less motivating than when you come to a race and you know that you can win.”