Max Verstappen would have had his Formula 1 career "damaged" by Lewis Hamilton had they been team-mates racing with the same machinery.
That's the view of the seven-time world champion's current partner George Russell. The younger Brit managed to get the better of his much more experienced and decorated team-mate in their first season together, but thinks it could have been much worse had Verstappen been paired with Hamilton instead.
He told Square Mile : "If Max might have gone to a team like Mercedes and had to face a peaking Lewis Hamilton there, that could have damaged his career. So you have to look at it from two sides.
"Max was a much better driver after gaining three or four years of experience compared to when he had 18 months of experience. If you have to compete against someone who is at his very best and dominates in the car they are used to, then Max might not be in this position today."
Of course, Verstappen never came close to a Mercedes move. Having been given his F1 debut as a fresh-faced teenager at Toro Rosso, his obvious potential meant was only ever going to end up being called up to the more competitive sister team Red Bull.
That move occurred a few races into the 2016 season, with Verstappen replacing the struggling Daniil Kvyat. He won his first F1 race on debut for his new team and never looked back – the Dutchman is now a double champion and looks well placed to make it three in a row this term.
While Red Bull will have no regrets about the timing of Verstappen's call up, it did not go down too well with the man he replaced. Speaking recently on the Track Limits podcast, Kvyat opened up on the pain of being demoted back down the the less competitive Toro Rosso team after little more than a year.
He said: "I felt really betrayed at that moment. It was a stab in the back and that's life, you get stabbed in the back sometimes you know, it's normal."
The Russian racer went on to add: "Now it's the past. I have another good career in racing so part of me of course is very thankful to Red Bull. The other part of me is still very unhappy with it."
