This year’s title fight is one of the most closely-fought battles in recen years. Max Verstappen was comfortably sitting on a 32-point lead over contender Lewis Hamilton after winning the Austrian Grand Prix, but the incident in Lap 1 at Silverstone and a messy Hungarian Grand Prix shook him off that lead to second in the championship, eight points behind adversary Hamilton.cHowever, in a recen interview, Adrian Newey expressed his feelings about the Dutchman having what it takes to fight back.

The veteran engineer and desginer said: “He has the same steely grit as any world champion, the stuff that they need to dig in and keep going in the face of adversity, he can put the past behind him and look forward to the next race.

“His driving ability is obviously superb, and he’s matured into a great racer. He’s really not made any mistakes this year,” added Newey.

“The races where he hasn’t scored heavily – Baku, Silverstone and Hungary have been no fault of his, but he’s kept his head and bounced back from all of those,” added Newey.

As Newey said, Verstappen failed to score in Azerbaijan due to a tyre issue and he retired in Silverstone due to the huge crash he was involved in with Hamilton. He had a not-so-great race in Hungary due to Lap 1 chaos, but managed to bounce back and score 2 points.

Christian Horner, team principal, has previously said that the bad luck in these races will wear itself out and Newey added that the pressure of disappointment will not be affecting the young driver.

“I don’t think the pressure of the situation will affect him. He’s very easy to chat to and has a wide range of interests, which I think is very important for an F1 driver. If your only interest is F1, that can almost make it too important when the pressure comes on. Max has a very good balance in that respect,” he added.