F1 rival certain about Max Verstappen as Lewis Hamilton example given in McLaren warning

Fernando Alonso insists Max Verstappen is still capable of winning the title despite the large points gap between the Dutchman and championship leader Oscar Piastri. And to illustrate his point, the Spaniard pointed out Verstappen's first title win in 2021, when he went up against Lewis Hamilton, was achieved in what he saud was an inferior Red Bull car.

McLaren have undoubtedly been the star performers this year. And, still, Verstappen has won four Grands Prix and kept himself close enough to Piastri and Lando Norris to remain within outside contention for the championship, though he is significantly behind by 63 points with six rounds remaining.

But Alonso clearly believes the Red Bull racer should not be ruled out. Speaking in the FIA press conference in Austin ahead of this weekend's United States Grand Prix, the Aston Martin driver said: "[Verstappen] is a four-time world champion. First of all that's not a [coincidence], he's one of the best drivers in the history of the sport.

"I think he is able to extract the maximum from the car and when the car is a dominant car he can win the championship and break some records along the season. When the car is not that good or it's not the fastest, he still provides the good lap in qualifying or the good race, the good fight.

"He's on a very good level, very high level. This year he's obviously fighting against a superior car, which is the McLaren, but if it comes to the last race or whatever and they are tight on points, maybe in that moment he becomes the man to follow.

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"As I said before I think the two McLarens have enough advantage in the car to fight between them but with Max that can happen, as we saw in 2021 when the car was a little bit less performing than the Mercedes, he still won the championship in Abu Dhabi."

Red Bull have found form since the summer break and Verstappen has won two of the last three Grands Prix, finishing second in the other. But he insisted there is "no guarantee" they will be strong again in Austin and was unwilling to make any grand statement about their chances.

He said: "We'll try. The last three weekends have been very nice, some better than others. In Singapore, I don't think we maximised the potential of the car but, again, we analyse everything and try to do better. That's what we'll try to do here. It's a great track to drive. Sprint weekends are always a bit hectic, but let's see what we can do.

"At the end of the day, the car is a bit different to the previous ones, so there's no guarantee that it works everywhere. We just look at it race by race and we'll try to do our best here."