Current Max Verstappen

2015 sees the arrival of the youngest driver ever to sit in an F1 car. Max Verstappen was born on 30th September 1997 and, assuming he makes the grid in Australia, will only be 17 years and 167 days, beating Jaime Alguersuaris' record by 1 year and 323 days (assuming my maths is correct).

How can such a young man be ready for F1? As the son of former F1 driver Jos Verstappen Max started racing karts at 4½ years old. In 2006 he won the Belgian Minimax Championship in the KF5 category and in 2007 he won both the Dutch and Belgian titles as well as the Belgian Cadet Championship.

In 2009 he won the KF5 Flemish Championship and moved up to International Karting. In 2010 Max finished 2nd in the KF3 World Cup, won the Euro Series and the WSK World Series. In 2011 he again won the WSK World Series and moved up the KF2 class winning the WSK Master Series and the South Garda Winter Cup in 2012. In 2013, at 15 years of age, Verstappen won the World KZ Championship, which is highest level of karting.

For 2014 Max moved up to European Formula 3. He finished 3rd in the Championship winning 10 of the 33 races, more than those who finished above him in the title race. Max was recruited into the Red Bull Young Driver Programme in August 2014 and only 6 days later was announced as one of the drivers for Toro Rosso in F1 for 2015. Apparently he was also being courted by Mercedes for their young driver programme so you have to wonder how much the pull of an F1 seat at Toro Rosso drove the decision to go with Red Bull.

Having already taken part in 3 Friday sessions as a test driver Max Verstappen is the youngest person ever to take part in a Grand Prix weekend. If he acquits himself well during 2015 many will say it is an inspired decision. If he turns into a mobile chicane or treats F1 like a destruction derby I'm sure many questions will be asked as to why someone not even old enough to qualify for a driving licence in his home country is allowed to get behind the wheel of a car at the pinnacle of motorsport.

Future Champion? One season (or even one race) wonder? 2015 will be very interesting for Max Verstappen.

 

[Il_leone]

RasputinLives Thank you even then Max had to passed around the outside to pull it off

Maybe people need to get out videos of Nigel Mansell in the art of passing and the dummy feint to suceed

What would be interesting to see is Ricciardo having to pass Verstappen for a race win this season

 

[Bill Boddy]

He would be told not to do it.

 

[Bushi]

RasputinLives

What would be interesting to see is Ricciardo having to pass Verstappen for a race win this season

Multi 21 Daniel, Multi 21.

 

[RasputinLives]

Multi 333 Danny.....oh wait....

 

[Il_leone]

Bushi Max 's response to Multi 21 " NO !"

 

[RasputinLives]

Which was also Vettels response at the time. People hated him for it. Max however was given praise.

 

[Il_leone]

RasputinLives I don't think Verstappen was given praise until his boss decided to change his tone I wonder who reminded him to look after Max

 

[vintly]

Which was also Vettels response at the time. People hated him for it. Max however was given praise.

That was also because there was (and still is to some extent) not only a lot of negative feeling towards Vettel (the finger, being German and successful – reasons I don't understand or agree with), but also a lot of positive and warm regard for Webber (regular bloke, affable, not bad for a number two driver, aww poor Marky he's being treated unfairly he's much nicer than nasty Vettel naughty person). This polarity of feeling helped make Vettel the bad guy in any Vettel/Webber drama much more so than young Max would have been seen in any Vertappen/Sainz drama.

Max lit up 2016 and I that's just the start, I think we'll have a brilliant start to the 2017 season.

 

[Titch]

In fairness vintly , whilst a lot of what you say about Vettel is true, he is prone to the odd on track hissy fit, which doesn't endear him to a lot of people.

 

[Incubus]

Another difference between the two is that in his early years Vettel actually did have a number of high-profile crashes. For all the talk of borderline defensive moves involving Max, he hasn't really had too many crashes I can think of. Monaco maybe.

 

[vintly]

In fairness vintly , whilst a lot of what you say about Vettel is true, he is prone to the odd on track hissy fit, which doesn't endear him to a lot of people.

Good point, even I've been put off by that unsavoury side to his character. Maybe Ferrari will do well this year and he'll be ok.... scratch that.

We've yet to see how Max deals with a bad season, if he ever has one. Maybe he won't!

 

[RasputinLives]

Max has had a few hissy fits. Remember being stuck behind Sainz in Australia?

 

[The Pits]

To be honest, most of the outbursts have come in the last couple of years, since he left Red Bull, although there was the Cucumber incident. I think he is generally disliked for some reason (success? being German?) and reasons are retrofitted, which is generally what humans do!

Regarding Max, I think he has had the feeling that he may have an accident about him, without actually having many, with his reputation being driven by the response from his peers. Personally I think he is just what the sport needs, he doesn't let the reputation or standing of others stop him from doing what he feels he needs to, much like a young chap who drove for McLaren in 2007....

 

[Titch]

I wonder whether he (Max) will become a bit of a Prima Donna should he become really successful. Considering that he's still very new and shiny he doesn't seem inclined to do things any way but his own way. With a few world championship wins behind him, I can see him being extremely arrogant.

 

[teabagyokel]

He's had a couple of incidents, but not many. I suspect he sometimes relies on the beneficence of others to avoid collisions; continuing to build feuds with opponents (Germans in Ferraris?) may lead to them playing hardball.

Then again, given the right car he won't be in combat much anyway.

 

[sobriety]

Then again, given the right car he won't be in combat much anyway.

Tru dat. I think I've said before that I rather hope other drivers start keeping their foot in and having the 'accident' with him, a couple of major shunts is the only way he'll find the limit of what's ok...

 

[Incubus]

Given the best car I actually think he'll be in rather a lot of combat with Ric!

 

[Il_leone]

Verstappen is being truly protected by Red Bull for a start and more loved than Ricciardo or Sainz. He's not hard a bad accident where everyone jumps on his back though he has had near misses but that is still yet to happen and the one incident to look out for is if it was involving Ricciardo

Part of Vettel's hatred was the Red Bull management namely the team principal were weak in criticising Vettel for some of his on track behaviour namely Turkey 2010 . Whilst some of Vettel's radio comments where he expects his team to move his teammate out of the way who earned track position by merit was arrogant.

So far Max 's career has been going up and up but it only takes one bad season for his reputation to take a knock or even one huge crash to sap his confidence

 

[teabagyokel]

Whilst some of Vettel's radio comments where he expects his team to move his teammate out of the way who earned track position by merit was arrogant.

We were talking about Multi 21, where he just got on with it and passed him.

 

[vintly]

It's inevitable in any team that there's some favouritism. One of the drivers is generally quicker than the other, one of them will be better at giving feedback, one will simply be a nicer chap and easier to work with. Maybe all three of these accolades, and more, would go to one driver, making him a clear favourite with the team. However much teams go on about equality with their drivers, that only goes so far. If it came down to one car getting an upgrade at a crucial point, with both drivers being on exactly the same points, the upgrade would go to the driver that was preferred for whatever reason or set of reasons – the favoured driver, simple as that.

That being said, even if favouritism is blatant, I don't have a problem with it. Why not favour one driver more than another? If you had Verstappen in your team, you might well favour him, even with the very highly rated and affable Ricciardo as his team-mate. You may on the other hand favour Ricciardo. Of course you rate them both and treat them equally, that's not the same as being favoured. Vettel was favoured over Webber, even when Webber was the 'nicer chap', because all being said and done, Vettel was a better asset to Red Bull than Webber. Jeez if you’re running a team, or a huge multinational fizzy drinks company that happens to provide oodles of F1 entertainment on the side, then you can pretty much run it as you see fit in my book, and I'll pay to watch it.