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.
 
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Il_leone said:
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
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We're back to Max in Australia last year again then?

Also it's strange to pick Vettel out for this as I Don't remember it happening too many times. I remember him moving out the way for Danny Ric when told to a couple of times.

Now if you'd said Alonso then I remember Alonso doing this a lot, as far back as Renault and Fisichella. I also remember Alonso asking Ferrari to move drivers out of his way who weren't his team mate.
 
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In their five years as team-mates, Vettel and Webber each showed no intention of following any team orders whatsoever. Paradoxically, Vettel was frequently criticised for this while Webber was lionised.
 
teabagyokel said:
In their five years as team-mates, Vettel and Webber each showed no intention of following any team orders whatsoever. Paradoxically, Vettel was frequently criticised for this while Webber was lionised.
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Let us not forget the perceived Vettel-bias from the management of RBR, such as the "Turkey Incident" or Silverstone Wing-gate ("not bad for a number 2 driver"), or the "fact" that Vettel was a German in a Germanic-sponsored team, while Maahk Wibbah was a fair dinkum Ozzie bloke not getting a fair go. One wonders if Marko & Mateschitz originally failed to notice the extra few letters in Mark's nationality...
 
Webber never finished 2nd in the Championship. They were damn right favouring Vettel!

The replacement Australian seems much more competitive, for now.
 
I don't disagree with you teabagyokel - Anglo-centric reporting and good old-fashioned kraut-disliking had more to do with Vettel's unpopularity compared to Webber (plus all those teeth-grindingly tedious Horner interviews during the "Red Bull era", one suspects).
 
I will go back to Singapore 2015 when Max was told to move over and he bluntly said "No". At first Franz Tost was critical of him for disobeying but then he said Max was right after all not to obey

There will be a moment when he and Ricciardo are going for the win and that might trigger a flashpoint especially if it meant taking points of each other in the driver's race

Vettel _ I remember Turkey 2009 when he went off lap 1 and gave Button the lead and could not utilise the extra pace on a 3 stop strategy and ended up stuck behind Webber and was trying to engineer a team order and getting frustrated . The engineer's response was " Tough luck" because there was no other option left.. you can't expect your teammate to move out the way for you if you messed up your own race plan like he did

I don't know if the team dynamics changed or he lost faith before the season started in the car in 2014 but certainly Vettel was more accomodating oto Danny Ric than he was to Webber

The times when Webber ignored a team order it was cleverly underplayed because in both instances Red Bull got a decent result

Brazil 2009 - Webber was suppose to slow the pace down for Vettel to catch up because Seb was down the grid and was going for a 1 stop strategy if I remember but Webber simply drove his own race and won, It was only when Vettel got angry post race interview was there any indication that team orders should have been carried out BUT the BBC got lost in euphoria of Button and Brawn winning the championships to complete a fairytale season

Brazil 2012 - Webber almost clipped Vettel at the start and for a while drove his own race until Vettel came steaming back up on a different strategy. I think Webber would have no doubt used the excuse that it concertinered at the start and had no room to move had Vettel been taken out. Webber is not a saint either but it always seems RBR looks a lot worse when you here all the radio conversations and how bungled they look
 
Sky's analyses of Max Verstappen race with di Resta nearly made me puke. He came across like a fanboy. In what felt like every second sentence him mentioned how Verstappen made other drivers look average, including Alonso, who as he stated is a two time WC, and Raikkonen.

Yes, yes, he made them all look average, "das Wunderkind", good that you Paul aren't racing anymore because you would have look like an amateur, in fact, that's why you aren't in F1 anymore.

The hype surrounding Verstappens start in second gear is also unbearable, I have seen Sainz's and Grosjean's onboards from the start and they also started in second gear.

DotD in Bahrain: Max Verstappen. ;)
 
RasputinLives said:
I think he does put Alonso in the shade to be honest.

Edit - and Kimi! But I Don't think that's beyond question these days is it?
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He puts Alonso in the shade because Alonso is riding a dead horse. In Latin they say, 'you can't ride a dead horse', which is why he's off to do some Indy racing.

I'm not going to discuss Kimi with you, he does look average, since he's returned to Ferrari he has had a handful of decent races.
 
Sorry. No. I meant Verstappen puts Alonso in the shade compared to where Alonso was in only his third season in F1. Sorry thought we were comparing careers not current performance. My bad.
 
Alonso's second and third season were relatively impressive, he surely didn't have the car that Verstappen has nowadays in terms of competitiveness, in his second season he also won a GP and lapped the Ferraris.

Raikkonen in his third season battled against Schumacher and Montoya for the championship, then he ran into same bad luck with McLaren either lacking in performance or in reliability but after winning the WC with Ferrari in 2007, he seems to be driving without a great deal of motivation with some exceptions, meaning he doesn't seem to put any effort in if the car isn't the working like he wants it to.
 
Alonso developed into a great driver. On his third season he was quick but was still getting pegged every other weekend by Trulli.

As for him lapping the Ferrari's.......sounds good but I watched that race and I know why it happened and it was due to circumstance. Not really sure why it's relevant.
 
When Verstappen said in Bahrain that he crashed because his brakes had failed completely or was it similar to "I have no grip", e.g. his brakes had cooled in the cold night air so his braking was too late?
 
Bill Boddy said:
When Verstappen said in Bahrain that he crashed because his brakes had failed completely or was it similar to "I have no grip", e.g. his brakes had cooled in the cold night air so his braking was too late?
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His rear brakes failed and thus the amount of deceleration through the front brakes wasn't sufficient.
 

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