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.

 

[RasputinLives]

I don't think it did have any effect on Sainz race. I'm just saying I'm sure Tost would have been out in the press saying Sainz needed to calm down if it had been him that had done it.

Tost showed which side his bread was buttered (buttered Tost!) when he came out after Singapore saying he was proud of Max for ignoring the team order to let Carlos through and it was the right thing to do. As the bloomin team order came from him in the first place you can see how Tost and Red Bull are fearful another team is going to come and poach Verstappen away if they say anything to upset him.

 

[Spinodontosaurus]

that's skewed due to the fact the both 4th places Verstappen achieved in the topsy turvy races, (which fairplay to him), one where Sainz was actually in a good position but had to retire.

Sainz had 7 DNFs compared to Verstappen's 4 and that's when he was in good points positions.

Otherwise it was close between them, but with Verstappen coming out ahead.

I read this a lot but I'm not convinced. Sainz was definitely hurt by his many mechanical failures but by how much?

Sainz was in 10th position when he retired in Hungary so that barely hurt him.
For his other retirements, he was well outside the points in Bahrain, he was also way out of the points in Austria but that was due to having just pitted, he might have managed a 9th place finish had he not retired. He was also running 9th in Silverstone, and would probably have finished there too.
His other retirements are harder to judge. He was 7th in Russia, but was actively ignoring the fact his brakes were critical and was also being rapidly caught by Massa. I think Massa would have passed him by the end of the race but Bottas' crash promotes Sainz back into 7th anyway. Sainz not retiring would also bump Verstappen down to 11th place and out of the points (he was 10th in reality).
He didn't even make the start in Brazil but I'm content to give him 10th place behind Verstappen.
I have no idea where he would have finished at Spa so I'm keeping it as a mechanical DNF so I don't have to count it.

That brings the points tally to 30 points in 18 races, so 1.67 points per race which is still much less than Verstappen's 3 per race, and I haven't even addressed the points Verstappen himself lost through bad luck. Bare in mind that Maldonado scored 1.8 points per race in a car that was, on average, slightly slower than the Toro Rosso, at least in qualifying.

Also note that F1Metrics' mathematical model ranked Verstappen the 5th and Sainz the 15th best drivers overall last season. Since they can't be connected to any other driver via common team mates, the author assumed the car was intermediate in performance to the Sauber and Lotus in order to rank the drivers, an assumption I disagree with entirely, but that only really impacts their absolute placement not their positioning relative to each other. The model clearly rates Verstappen's season much more highly than Sainz's, and since it is based on a point-per-race metric like the one I used here that isn't hard to see why.

 

[RasputinLives]

Spinodontosaurus as an exercise I run the rookie championship every year on the old 10-6-4-3-2-1 system and if you look here

2015 F1 Rookie Championship

Verstappen, Sainz and even Nasr were fairly level pegging until that last third of the season when Max pulled away

I'll be running the rookie/softmere championship this year which I'm just sorting so will be able to monitor again.

 

[Spinodontosaurus]

I was just checking some quali stats from last year and spotted something.

Over the first 10 races Sainz outqualified Verstappen 6-4.
Over the final 9 races Verstappen outqualified Sainz 5-1.
The overall tally was 9-8 to Verstappen.
Note I'm not counting sessions where either couldn't set a representative time due to technical issues (Italy/Japan).

I'm bringing this up because it suggests that Verstappen improved throughout the season relative to Sainz which is in-line with what is shown in your Rookie Championship too. It's also what you would expect given Verstappen was only in his second ever year of car racing.

I also compared the qualifying gaps between all team mates from last year, using percentages rather than raw time gaps, and this change in performance is even more apparent.
Over the first 10 races Sainz had a median advantage of 0.082% over Verstappen; over the final 9 races this shifted dramatically in Verstappen's favour with him having a median advantage of 0.458%.
However over the season as a whole they were the second closest driver pairing on the grid with Verstappen having a median advantage of just 0.059%. The biggest gap across the full season was Vettel's 0.432% advantage over Raikkonen, the smallest was Hulkenberg's 0.032% advantage over Perez.





I've read an interesting analysis suggesting that Sainz's early pitstop cost Toro Rosso a big haul of points in Australia.
Link. (there is another comment slightly further down that deals more with Sainz)

If Sainz had stayed out until ~Lap 35 he would still come out behind Palmer, albeit closer to him and with less laps to stretch his last set of tyres. He may have been able to do something with it. The crucial point though is that Verstappen was on course to build enough of a gap to stay ahead of Palmer, Bottas, Hulkenberg and Grosjean by ~Lap 38-40.
Instead Sainz called for a stop on Lap 31, which then caused Verstappen to pit on Lap 32 (seemingly without telling the team) and come out behind all the cars he was on target to stay ahead of, and also behind Sainz.

I kind of get why Verstappen was upset but in hindsight that was a really, really bad move on his part. He threw away a fairly comfortable 6th place and essentially gifted Sainz 9th. Heck considering Grosjean finished just 13 seconds behind Massa I wonder if Verstappen could have had a shot at him too.

 

[Il_leone]

Spinodontosaurus Was not on one those races Max outqualified Sainz because Carlos smashed his car in Sochi and was forced to start at the back

I don't doubt Max has got enormous ability but if he continues to sulk at every thing and blame everyone thinking he owns the road..he will find very quickly that teams will look for the next best thing and ignore him because they know despite his abilities he is trouble

A few races where Sainz keeps beating him will be a test of his character . I can only really compare Sainz and Verstappen to Ralf Schumacher and Fisichella back in 1997 where you had two young chargers out to prove themselves

Ralf was considered the better prospect but he was more arrogant and junked a few chassis whereas Fisi was the more calmer and simply let his driving do the talking

In the end Jordan team wanted Fisi more but he was forced to leave because of contractual reasons. I don't expect this at Toro Rosso/ Red Bull but Max better watch out before he burns too many bridges

 

[Bill Boddy]

I find it odd that a driver complains about his team mate not being told to let him go past is the same one who previously refused to let him through when the team ordered him to step aside.

But then people who are determined to get to the top usually have blinkered vision.

 

[ATL11]

Wonder if his recent behavior is because he's 'Over Tired?'

 

[Spinodontosaurus]

Was not on one those races Max outqualified Sainz because Carlos smashed his car in Sochi and was forced to start at the back

I wasn't sure whether to include Sochi or not, but I did because Sainz crashed the car and thus missed qualifying through his own mistake. I'm still not sure whether it's right to include situations like this, because the accident wasn't in qualifying it was in practice.

If I exclude it then the second half tally becomes 4-1 to Verstappen with a median gap of 0.259%, and the overall 2015 tally becomes 8-8 with the median gap being just 0.013% in Verstappen's favour.

So the point I was originally trying to get across still stands (that, at least in qualifying, Verstappen improved dramatically in the second half of the season).

 

[Il_leone]

Are we sure both Mercedes and Ferrari would sign Max Verstappen if he was available right now ?

I don't see how Max could survive the politics of Ferrari especially he keeps opening his mouth and blaming the team and/ or decides to do a " Pironi" although I don't see how Vettel would move over for him either

At Mercedes would they want someone who would seriously divide the team and preaches equal treatment for the drivers ?

 

[Spinodontosaurus]

I don't think they would, but I think it would do Verstappen some good if they did as I doubt he would be able to match Hamilton/Vettel just yet.

The only sensible ways I can think of to rate Verstappen relative to the rest of the grid last year is to either assume the Toro Rosso was comparable in performance to the Lotus or to the Red Bull (the latter only in the first half of the season).

The Toro Rosso chassis was widely regarded to be comparable to the Red Bull early in the season, a belief confirmed by GPS analyses, so that gives us a nice comparison point. Verstappen and Sainz were both badly outperformed by the two Red Bull drivers during this period even accounting for points lost through mechanical DNFs.
The other option is Lotus, as Toro Rosso was on average only slightly faster than the Lotus in qualifying across the season. So we could perhaps assume the two cars to be roughly equal, which would place Verstappen around the same level as Grosjean seeing as they were closely matched over the season; Verstappen was ahead 9-7 in qualifying but Grosjean was ahead 7-5 in races and 51-49 in points.

Either way you look at it, Verstappen isn't going to bother a top driver, at least not at this stage of his career. So I think it would do him a world of good if he was signed to Mercedes/Ferrari, as it might knock him down a peg or two and force him to reign in his attitude, which in the long run would only be a good thing for him (and whatever team he is in).

 

[gethinceri]

Wonder if his recent behavior is because he's 'Over Tired?'

Best thing I've read today.

 

[Titch]

Wonder if his recent behavior is because he's 'Over Tired?'

Why would he be overtired. He's young, fit and should be able to burn the candle at both ends. Or do you think it's because he's working to hard?
There are a lot of us who are tired but we manage to stay positive. Not stamp our feet and behave like spoiled brats.

I suppose it's a risk you take though, when you employ infants who still need an afternoon nap.

 

[gethinceri]

That's precisely the point Titch, I think.

 

[Titch]

Oh I see. Sorry ATL11 .

 

[ATL11]

Oh I see. Sorry ATL11 .

No worries, I seem to remember the quote being on a Vauxhall advert in the UK.

 

[Il_leone]

Can anyone get the quote from Helmut Marko that delivers the ultimatum that " Whoever loses out of Sainz and Verstappen will be out of the Red Bull set up ?"

We've seen the Red Bull young driver programme is very brutal and it would be a shame if one of these two talented drivers careers were cut short.

So a lot is riding on whoever the victor is out of their inter team battle according to Allan McNish's article

 

[RasputinLives]

He has never said that.

 

[racecub]

He said this in an interview....

'HM: We basically have long-term contracts at the Red Bull junior program and the whole program is based on performance. So no shoot-out, but be very clear: the one who is not delivering goes."

The whole interview is here.

Exclusive interview - Helmut Marko on Red Bull, racing, and Toro Rosso’s talent

 

[RasputinLives]

The one who is not delivering does not mean the one who loses is out. From where I'm standing they are both delivering.

The next in line to the Toro Rosso throne is Piere Gasly who needs a LOT more development before he is on the level of Sainz or Verstappen.

 

[Il_leone]

racecub

Thank you I do get the feeling that if they had a choice to dump one driver then if they all performed well it would be Danii Kyvat
and they want to keep Max Verstappen out of the opposition's hands.

RasputinLives It does seem that Pierre Ghasly as long as he doesnot perform ghastly poor in GP2 is going to get promoted to Toro Rosso