Like Ferrari's fans, Damon Hill was hopeful of the Italian outfit challenging for the title after it hit the ground running at the start of 2022, but ultimately the Scuderia's performance proved "lamentable".
With two wins in the first three races, Charles Leclerc put a stronghold on the championship, which led many to believe that the House of Maranello was back in business.
While Ferrari's performance this season has undeniably improved, operational and strategy blunders have frequently thrown a spanner in the works, leaving Verstappen to pick up the wins and leading Hill to wonder whether the championship was won by Red Bull "brilliance" or lost by Ferrari's missteps and slipups.
"I think it's very difficult to actually decide whether or not it's Red Bull and Max's brilliance this season and almost perfect performance, or whether it was Ferrari shooting themselves in the foot," said the 1996 F1 world champion on the latest F1 Nation podcast.
"It was a lamentable at times performance from them because they showed so much promise at the beginning.
"Between team strategy and a few driver errors, they're basically lacking the ability to move forward with the car.
"They didn't provide the challenge to Max because it's still close between Sergio [Perez] and Charles in the championship."
While critical of Ferrari, Hill nevertheless underscored Red Bull's effectiveness and Verstappen's "sublime" confidence.
"If you took Max out the equation, you could say: 'Okay, well that's the difference,' but Max was 20 seconds ahead of Charles and Sergio in Japan in the wet after 20 laps," added Hill.
"It was a second a lap quicker and Ferrari just couldn't play with that at all. They were done by that and Charles's tyres were routed.
"That indicates that their setup is not working the tyres the way that Red Bull are, so they couldn't provide a challenge.
"But Max's confidence was [high], he was really serene. He was sublime brilliant all year, and never looked rattled."
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