"You thoroughly deserve this" - Red Bull boss and FC Barcelona midfielder Frenkie de Jong congratulate Max Verstappen on Laureus Award

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner and FC Barcelona midfielder Frenkie de Jong congratulated reigning world champion Max Verstappen for being awarded the 'Laureus World Sportsman of the Year' award for his championship title win in the 2021 season.

Horner claimed that the 24-year-old deserved the award and that he hopes for an equally successful season in 2022:

"Max, congratulations! Everybody in the team is incredibly proud of everything that you have achieved. You thoroughly deserve this award and yeah you know, let's try and do it all again in 2022."

Speaking about the courage displayed by the Dutchman throughout the 2021 season, Frenkie de Jong said:

"Hi Max, congratulations on winning the Laureus award, it's well deserved I think. Max deserves to win the award because he has had an amazing year, I think he showed a lot of courage, he won the world championship and I think he has an elite mentality. So I think because of that he deserves to win."

Max Verstappen had his most successful and consistent season last year and managed to secure a podium with a top-two finish in a record eighteen races in the same season.

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Max Verstappen claims that lapping Lewis Hamilton at Imola was "not anything exciting"

The Red Bull driver had an absolutely dominant weekend at Imola, grabbing the maximum possible points from the sprint and main race. In an interesting turn of events from last year, Verstappen was seen lapping Lewis Hamilton towards the end of the race, something the driver claims was not very exciting as Mercedes have evidently struggled all year so far.

As reported by The Sun, he spoke about what the weekend in Italy meant to him and the team:

"Mercedes has been slow all year, so for me it's not anything exciting, it just happens. It was a good weekend for us, we needed it. I didn't expect us to have a weekend like this."

"But when you have a weekend at the end like this, that's incredible: a one-two for the team but also maximum points scored. Also the way we handled the race, we didn't really make any mistakes. A very positive weekend."

After facing significant reliability issues in two out of the first three races of the 2022 season, Max Verstappen had an incredible weekend at Imola and currently stands second in the drivers' standings with a 27-point gap to championship leader Charles Leclerc.