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The season's first two floodlit races in Bahrain and Saudi
Arabia have seen Ferrari's Charles Leclerc and Red Bull's
Verstappen -- both 24 -- go wheel-to-wheel with one victory
apiece.
The pair, established stars of the youth wave coming through who
were just kids when Mercedes' Hamilton made his F1 debut in
2007, have been rivals since their formative years in go-karts.
"They were fighting when they were kids and now here for the
first position in F1. It's very good for F1, a fantastic start
to the season," enthused Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto
on Sunday night.
Leclerc leads the standings, ahead of 27-year-old team mate
Carlos Sainz, with Verstappen third and George Russell, another
24-year-old, fourth for Mercedes. Hamilton, 37, is fifth.
The sport has undergone a rules revolution, in the hope of
making racing closer and more exciting, and Red Bull boss
Christian Horner said the evidence was there to see.
"In the last two races we've seen Charles and Max pass each
other about 10 times, which we haven't seen in previous seasons,
and it's been great racing," he said.
"Of a sample of two, you'd have to say it's a big tick in the
box for the ability to follow closely and race wheel to wheel.
It's been outstanding."
The next round is Australia on April 10 before Formula One
returns to Europe and a home race for Ferrari at Italy's Imola.
"It's now going to be about development, about unlocking
potential with these cars that are still very immature," said
Horner.
"We can see Ferrari are very, very quick and it's going to be a
busy period through the rest of the spring now to try and get
performance to the cars, understand how the tyres are working
and so on over these next few races."
TIGHT BATTLE
Ferrari lead the way to Melbourne, having scored 78 points from
a maximum 88 available, but Binotto said Red Bull were still the
team to beat.
"I think it will be again a good battle, a tight battle. I
believe that still Red Bull is very fast, they are the strongest
because they have the world champion," he said.
"I would say they are still the favourites and we try to do our
best, let's see. There are a lot of situations that may happen."
Red Bull are in second place in the constructor standings with
37 points, a point behind Mercedes, but they failed to score in
Bahrain and reliability is always a concern.
"Luck tends to even itself out over the course of a year," said
Horner.
"We've just got to go race by race. We're off the mark now.
We're on the scoreboard, we've won our first race of the year,
both drivers have been very competitive and we've just got to
build some momentum."
Red Bull have plenty of straight line speed, while Ferrari were
faster through the corners in Jeddah, and different tracks will
play to individual strengths.
Once-dominant champions Mercedes meanwhile must tame a 'porpoising'
car to get back in the game.
"It's a very intense battle with Ferrari," said Horner. "I have
no doubt Mercedes will at some point join that battle but my
focus is very much on our team."
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Ken Ferris)
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