Nico Rosberg: Max Verstappen "driver of the year" despite McLaren success

Nico Rosberg has called four-time Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen the "driver of the year" during the first day of practice for the Spanish Grand Prix.

Speaking on the Sky Sports F1 broadcast, the 2016 champion explained that the Dutchman still has a chance of the drivers' championship title:

“Max is still right in there. The last normal track was Imola, and he dominated the race there. He was very, very fast.

“Here we’re seeing he’s a little bit behind, but he’s still close, and you never really know what fuel loads the teams are doing there. He’s driving incredibly well.

“For me, he’s the driver of the year so far. You can never count out Max."

He added:

“It was really interesting for me because it was the first time I’ve been out on track in a long, long time, and I really saw the Max Verstappen magic out there.

Nico Rosberg, Sky F1, on the grid

Photo by: Mark Sutton

“First of all, these cars are incredibly nervous on the rears. You see the drivers working the wheel a lot and the rear is very snappy, always. It’s very heavy, snappy and looks like a handful for everybody.

“Max Verstappen comes through the corner, and it’s really incredible. He dials out the understeer and makes it quite an oversteery car, and then every other driver would have massive snaps and really freestyle, but he is able to really keep that oversteer within this beautiful, very narrow window where he never goes over it.

“If you go over, you overheat the tyres, you snap, you lose a load of time - and he just balances that oversteer within this tiny window amazingly. It’s like a work of art out there, it’s incredible.”

The former F1 driver went on to compare Verstappen to his Red Bull team-mate Yuki Tsunoda, stating:

“With Yuki Tsunoda, he comes in, big understeer, and it still snaps to oversteer as you go from that switch, going on power.

“That’s the essence of it. That’s why Max is always six-tenths quicker than every single team-mate that you put next to him.

“All these team-mates are very good drivers and it comes down to the fine feeling and the speed of processing the very, very fine details of what’s going on at the rear.

“Tiny, tiny inputs where you are just reacting that little bit faster than anybody else out there and just being more precise. It’s like art.”

Rosberg on Verstappen's season so far

Later, Rosberg reviewed some of Verstappen's best moments on track so far this season. Joining fellow former F1 driver and Sky Sports F1 analyst Anthony Davidson at the SkyPad, the pair discussed the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. Commenting on Verstappen's exquisite wheel-to-wheel racing abilities.

"I had to be on the receiving end of [Verstappen's overtakes] once upon a time, where he just drove flat out round the outside of me exactly in these conditions. Okay, I was fighting for a championship. He was not. So that’s a big difference."

He continued:

"And we’ve seen that over and over again. He’s just amazing also in wheel-to-wheel racing."

The duo also discussed moments from the Japanese and Emilia Romagna Grands Prix as the German branded Verstappen's impressive overtake of Oscar Piastri at the start of the Imola race as "one of the greatest overtaking moves we’ve ever seen."

Verstappen ended today’s first practice session second-fastest behind Lando Norris, and in the second session he was third-fastest behind Oscar Piastri and George Russell.

Despite the dominance of McLaren this year, the four-time champion is just 25 points behind drivers' championship leader Piastri, sitting third behind Norris.