After clinching his first world title in 2021, Verstappen ha﷽s gone from strength-to-strength, winning a record-breaking 15 races on his way to sealing a second successive drivers’ crown last year. 

And the two-time world champion is well on his way to a third consecutive world title after claiming five victorieꦦs from the opening seven races so far in 2023.

Asked by Sky Italy if he thinks Verstappen is the perfect driver, Newey replied: “I think he is. He's got tremendous car control and nat✅ural ability.

“He came in, ma🍌ybe made some mistakes early on because he was pushing so hard, but now he's really smooth and drives absolutely to the l🐷imit of the car, but within that he's very thoughtful.

"He has a very good feeling from the tyres, we have seen that in several races ovܫer the last two years🧔. He really has a good feel with how to use the tyres. With the tyre behaviour, that's such an important factor now.”

Newey, who is consideꦅred one of F1’s best technical minds, h🧸as been responsible for designing championship-winning cars for some of the sport’s best drivers. 

As well as Verstappen, Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost, Damon Hill, Jacques Villeneuve, Mika Hakkinen and Sebastian Vettel have all won titles driving Newey’s F1 carsꦆ. 

"Those driver🔥s are all so different to each other,” Newey explained. 

“Nigel had huge self-confidence, a lot of upper-body strength, wh🧔ich in those days with no power steering and lots of downforce, was important. A fierc💎e competitor out on track.

"Alain much more methodical, very articulate and testing was very frustrating bec🥃ause often he wouldn't push himself. So you never quite knew where you were. But when he wanted to, he could turn it on.

"Mika and Kimi were very different. They didn't say very much but what they did say, you had to take a lot o🌊f notice of and interpret what they were saying because they had different ways of putting things.

"Sebastian was a big thinker, long debriefs and spent a huge amount of time going through everything. Max is more in the middle. So very different characters but all phenomenal in their ♓own right.”