‘Just so good’… Jolyon Palmer admits 26-year-old driver showed off his ‘amazing’ talent at Las Vegas GP

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Jolyon Palmer has admitted that the Las Vegas Grand Prix gave Max Verstappen the perfect platform to show just how quick he is.

Palmer was speaking on the Chequered Flag Podcast with just one race to go in the 2023 calendar.

Max Verstappen won’t want this season to end given his supreme dominance over the rest of the grid.

Even his teammate Sergio Perez can’t get close to him in the same car as Verstappen has now doubled his points tally for the season.

There have been some races this season where Verstappen has been able to get a good start off the line and race off into the distance.

He’s been so dominant that on some broadcasts you wouldn’t even know he was racing until he took the chequered flag.

However, Verstappen didn’t have it all his own way in Las Vegas and Jolyon Palmer believed it was a fantastic opportunity for him to show his expert race craft.

He was penalised for pushing Charles Leclerc off the road going into turn one on the first lap, but ultimately, the five seconds he waited before his pit stop made little difference once the safety car came out.

The way he overtook Leclerc and controlled the race from the front showed just how fast he is.

Palmer raves about Verstappen in Las Vegas

Speaking about the 26-year-old, Palmer said: “Every week, we just see his amazing talent and this race was one where we could witness it.

“Sometimes you can’t. In Brazil, he’s winning from lights to flag and he controls it, and there’s a lot of skill going on there, managing the tyres and controlling the pace.

“But you don’t see him bringing back a position of loss to a victory. Sometimes you do get that.

“Austin was one where he had to start a bit further down and then this one as well.

“He had a damaged car, he’d already not had a good first stint, he had a damaged car with [George] Russell and then he’s behind his teammate.

“And [Sergio] Perez was running a really decent race as well in a not damaged Red Bull and Max still managed to pick him off, had better pace and delivered a really decent run to the flag, unchallenged in the end.

“He’s just so good! He makes very few mistakes and so many times this year it looks like he might not win and almost always he finds a way.”

Palmer wasn’t the only person impressed with Verstappen in Las Vegas, with Alice Powell commenting on how easily he got past Carlos Sainz as he struggled to protect his teammate.

He could add a 19^th win to his tally in Abu Dhabi which would set a record that will be almost impossible to beat.

However, you wouldn’t bet against him giving it a good go in 2024 as long as Red Bull are still just as dominant.

Plenty of neutrals will hope that the gap between them and the chasing pack closes over the winter.

Somehow, it’s hard to imagine the likes of Christian Horner and Adrian Newey allowing that to happen.