Max Verstappen is a talented driver, no doubt — but would he have really been able to win the 2024 Formula 1 World Championship in a different car? 

It’s a tough question, certainly — but it’s a premise that Fred Vasseur of Ferrari rejects outright.

Max Verstappen can’t be separated from his car

The 2024 season marked the fourth year in a row that Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen secured a World Drivers’ Championship, but it was his hardest fought title yet.

In Miami, just a few races into the season, McLaren arrived with an update package that turned the title on its head. Suddenly, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were able to run at the front and compete for wins.

Upgrade packages from Mercedes and Ferrari followed — all while Red Bull seemed to lag behind. The team’s counter-development simply wasn’t there, and Verstappen began fighting to retain his grasp on the title.

He ultimately secured that title in Las Vegas, with two races remaining in 2024, but that didn’t stop him from telling Dutch media that he felt he’d have won the title “even earlier” if he’d been competing with a rival car — such as a Ferrari or a McLaren.

Fred Vasseur simply does not agree.

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In an interview with Autosprint, Fred Vasseur wholeheartedly rejected the idea that Verstappen could have won a title without Red Bull.

“It makes no sense to think or say that in another team Verstappen would have won the same,” Vasseur argued, “since it is not possible to separate the performance of a driver from that of his car.

“There are too many elements involved.”

To illustrate his point, he suggested what may have happened had Verstappen been a McLaren driver.

“It makes no sense to say that Verstappen would have won in a McLaren as well, since the quality level of Woking’s team also depends on feedback and work done with its current drivers,” Vasseur said.

Effectively, a team’s current car functions as it does due to the feedback of its current drivers. Sure, Verstappen could have hopped into a McLaren — but perhaps it wouldn’t have suited him.

“In 2022 and 2023 the Red Bull was much better,” Vasseur continued.

“When you have six tenths of a head, you can make mistakes and nobody notices it and you are beatified.

“This year, however, it was enough a small mistake to make the team of Milton Keynes down to sixth place.”

Still, Vasseur had words of praise for the driver that took the title.

“What impressed me about Verstappen this year was his ability to extract the best even when they struggled,” he said.

“And this is a lesson for us, because over the course of a season in such a competitive context there are races where we are not the strongest, but it is necessary to maximize the result.

“To win, you need to make a difference when you’re not in the right place. That’s where he has made a difference.”

Read next: Max Verstappen v. The World: How the Red Bull driver stacks up against his teammates