Former Le Mans winner Richard Bradley has urged Max Verstappen to quit Red Bull and join Ferrari.
Verstappen has been linked with a shock move to Ferrari despite dominating the Formula 1 scene with Red Bull in recent years. The Dutchman won the 2021 and 2022 Drivers' Championships and has come out on top in five of the seven races this season, coming second in the other two.
The 25-year-old is a mammoth 53 points ahead at the top of the Drivers' leader board. He sits on 170 following his latest victory at the Spanish Grand Prix, with Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez second on 117 and Ferrari's Fernando Alonso in third (99). Lewis Hamilton (87) and George Russell (65) make up the top-five.
However, Bradley believes Verstappen should move to a lesser car to prove he is one of the greatest-ever drivers, rather than dominating in the most superior car. "I think that Max is going to end up at Ferrari in a couple of years," Bradley told On Track GP.
"It wouldn't surprise me, I think especially if he keeps on winning titles and he starts to get complacent, and people start saying 'oh, is he the greatest of all time?' Max is the sort of guy that goes 'okay, well I'll do what Schumacher did: I'll take Ferrari from not being in the position to win, to make them World Champions'.
"The reason I think this is because Max is on the path to greatness, we can all see that, he's on a meteoric rise, he's dominant at the minute, he's had two World Championships in the Red Bull, but we've never actually seen him do what defines the true greats."
Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna and Lewis Hamilton are amongst the greatest-ever drivers after winning multiple world championships. However, many consider the trio to be so well-recognised because they have driven and won in 'sub-standard' cars.
Bradley added: "And when I say that, we look at Schumacher, we look at Senna, Hamilton, and the one thing that defines all of these guys is that they were able to win in a sub-standard car and take a manufacturer to a position where they weren't winning at the time, but then they're able to bring them back there.
"Schumacher doing it with Ferrari, we had Senna when he was at Lotus, we had Hamilton at McLaren after the new rules came in in 2009 and then of course with Mercedes. Whilst Max is doing exactly what he needs to do in a very, very good team and car, I think he's going to want to prove himself because Max, there's no secret, he's quite a proud person to say the least.
"And he's going to want to show that he is one of the true all-time greats. And I can see him wanting to bring Ferrari back to the glory that they had with Schumacher, in the next few years."
