{"id":164823,"date":"2025-09-23T22:37:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T22:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/164823\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T22:37:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T22:37:08","slug":"villeneuve-backs-genius-verstappen-for-greatest-achievement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/164823\/","title":{"rendered":"Villeneuve backs &#8216;genius&#8217; Verstappen for &#8216;greatest achievement&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpblog.com\/en\/f1\" title=\"F1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">F1<\/a> driver and world champion <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpblog.com\/en\/jacques-villeneuve\" title=\"Jacques Villeneuve\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jacques Villeneuve<\/a> believes that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpblog.com\/en\/f1-drivers\/max-verstappen\" title=\"Max Verstappen\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Max Verstappen<\/a> &#8220;can win&#8221; the 2025 title and that it would be &#8220;his greatest achievement ever&#8221;.<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/20250919-0578m-68ce9119a450a.jpg@webp.webp\" class=\"w-auto\" alt=\"max-verstappen-baku-jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Max Verstappen took his fourth race win of 2025 in Baku | Photo: Race Pictures<\/p>\n<p>Verstappen is a genius. He\u2019s driving like world champions should.- Jacques Villeneuve on Max Verstappen&#8217;s recent performancesThe four-time world champion threw himself back into the championship winning disscussion after his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpblog.com\/en\/grandsprix\/azerbaijan-grand-prix\" title=\"Azerbaijan Grand Prix\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Azerbaijan Grand Prix<\/a> victory made it two wins in a row after his Italian Grand Prix win perviously.With the Dutchman finding his feet again at the front of the grid, coupled with Oscar Piastri&#8217;s lap 1 crash in Baku, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpblog.com\/en\/news\/drivers-standings-update-verstappen-reopens-the-championship-in-baku\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">the gap between the championship leader and the Red Bull driver now sits at 69 points with seven races remaining<\/a>. That is now a gap that is not too challenging to overhaul, Villeneuve explains.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVerstappen can win the championship. He is only three races away, and that\u2019s not as much as people think,&#8221; the Canadian said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy only worry is at Singapore. Even when the Red Bull was an incredible car, for some reason, that\u2019s never been a good track for them. That\u2019s the kind of track where they have suffered. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;On the other hand, they weren\u2019t that bad in Zandvoort. So, who knows? This season has been full of surprises. A team that should be good at a track is useless, and vice versa. We keep being surprised. And it\u2019s amazing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Villeneuve stunned by VerstappenIf Verstappen were to make it a fifth world title, Villeneuve stated how stunning of a result it would be in the worls of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpblog.com\/en\/formula-1\" title=\"Formula 1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Formula 1<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVerstappen is a genius. He\u2019s driving like world champions should. He\u2019s driving at that level. If you think about the golden days when you had Prost and Senna and Mansell and Piquet, they were all driving like this. Against each other. That\u2019s the level you want in F1. That\u2019s the level you have to show.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf Max Verstappen wins the World Drivers\u2019 Championship, it\u2019s definitely his greatest achievement ever. This year is definitely above the rest because they were not supposed to be in the hunt. He is easily the best of this generation without question,\u201d concluded the 1997 world champion.<\/p>\n<p>With the current form of Verstappen and the points difference separating the Dutchman and Piastri in the standings,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpblog.com\/en\/general\/what-does-the-paddock-think-about-max-verstappens-title-chances\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> opinions have been divided across the paddock on whether Verstappen can make it five consecutive drivers&#8217; titles<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Want to stay up-to-date with what happens in the F1 paddock? Then GPblog&#8217;s F1 Paddock Update video is the perfect way to do it. Subscribe to GPblog&#8217;s YouTube channel and turn on notifications to never miss the latest episodes.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former F1 driver and world champion Jacques Villeneuve believes that Max Verstappen &#8220;can win&#8221; the 2025 title and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-164823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}