Introduction
Who better to start this series with than the driver who’s currently leading the championship, a fellow Dutchie, and favourite of many: Max Verstappen.
The talented young 23 year old Dutchman is seen as a future championship winner by F1 fans and racing experts alike, and already has quite some records to his name. He is the first driver in a couple of years to really give seven time world championship winner Lewis Hamilton a run for his money on track after a long, lonely reign by the Brit. But where did it all start?
Max Emilian Verstappen was born on 30 September 1997 in the Belgian city of Hasselt. His parents, Jos Verstappen and Sophie Kumpen are both no strangers to motorsports, so it was no surprise that little Max also desired to join in on the fun.
His mother, the Belgian Sophie Kumpen, had a successful karting-career during which she raced with wellknown drivers as Giancarlo Fisichella, Jarno Trulli and Jenson Button. She also raced in the Formido Swift Cup, before deciding to put her career aside to take care of her children, and support her husband in his career as a racing driver.
Max’s father, Jos Verstappen, also had a quite successful racing career. After karting and racing in several other series, Jos joined Formula 1 as second driver for Benetton Formula next to the one and only Michael Schumacher. He was considered the most successful Dutch F1 racing driver before he retired, and before his son Max joined the game. For years, Jos has trained his son to be a great driver, which now appears to be paying off. In a pretty short time span, Max has shown his talent and placed himself alongside the ‘big names’ like Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel.
Even though he was born in Belgium, Max races under a Dutch racing license because he “feels more Dutch”. This is due to the fact he spent a lot of his time with his father, and used to be surrounded by Dutch people when growing up in the village of Maaseik, near the Dutch border. During an interview in 2015, the Red Bull driver said that he only was in Belgium to sleep, and that he spent the rest of his time in the Netherlands.
Early Days
When he was only four years old, little Max started karting. In 2005, at the age of seven, he was allowed to participate in kartraces - and immediately became champion in the Mini Class of the Belgian Championship. The following year, he again ended up on top of the championship-list after winning all 21 races.
In the years that followed, Max had won every karting championship he had participated in, and won those championships by winning almost all, if not all of the races. Only in 2012, he struggled a bit. He was on track to win the championship of the KF2 series, but after a collision in the qualifying session during the second race weekend, Max got a penalty. His team announced that it would appeal, so that he could still start ninth for the first final race. After winning the first final race, Max decided to play it safe during the last race and finished third. However, it turned out that the protest procedure had not been followed correctly, and Max’s results for both races were removed. In the championship, your worst result was scrapped. However, since Max was eliminated from both races in the second race weekend, his worst result was second place in the first race weekend, so this podium place didn’t count for the championship at all. As a result, he fell back to tenth place in the championship and did not end up on the podium for this series.
All in all, Max ended up filling his trophy cabinet and really showed his talent to the world. In 2013, Max was asked to do some test drives for Team Motopark, and he made his official debut in motorsport for Van Amersfoort Racing in the 2014 European Formula 3 Championship. On May 4, in his sixth Formula 3 start, Max won the third race at the Hockenheimring after starting from pole position. At Spa-Francorchamps, he became the first driver in 2014 to achieve three wins in one weekend. A week later at the Norisring, he again won three races in a row.
His performance in the 2014 Formula 3 Championship caught the attention of all the major teams. 10 wins, 16 podiums and seven poles saw him finish third in the championship, and so began a race to sign him.
That same year, on 12 August 2014 to be precise, it was announced that Max Verstappen would enter the Red Bull Junior program. A day later, Red Bull stunned the sporting world when they announced they had signed 17-year-old Max Verstappen to their Toro Rosso team for 2015.
Welcome To Formula One...
When driving his first free practice session in Formula 1, during the Japanese GP, Max became the youngest driver to ever drive during a Formula 1 race weekend. At 17 years and 3 days old, he was more than two years younger than the previous record holder, Sebastian Vettel.
When Verstappen made his debut in F1, he did not even have his driver’s license - and he didn’t care about having one. As the Dutch driver said in an interview, “On the road, I actually prefer to sit next to the driver. You can't race there. My father is my taxi. We've been driving from kart circuit to kart circuit together since I was four years old.”. Eventually, he did get his driver’s license, but he had to pass the same exams as any other potential driver would. There was no special treatment for the F1-driver, and the examiner couldn’t be bribed with signed Red Bull merchandise.
In 2015, at the Australian GP, Max made his race debut for Torro Rosso, finishing the race in ninth position after having engine problems. In his second race, the Malaysian GP, he scored his first championship points by finishing seventh, and became the youngest driver to achieve this.
His best results this season were two fourth places (at the Hungarian GP and United States GP), and finished 12th in that year’s championship. The world was impressed by his daring overtakes, his ambition, and the risks he dared to take at such a young age.
Soon, people started to talk about the fact that it was only a matter of when he would become a world champion.
At the end of his first F1 season, he received a number of awards including; the Rookie of the Year award, the prize for the best overtaking of the season, the FIA Action of the Year award, and the FIA Personality of the Year award.
The Growing Of A Future Champion?
In 2016, his second year in F1, the Dutchman raced again for Torro Rosso. On the 5th of May, 10 days before the Spanish GP, Max moved to Red Bull, taking Daniil Kvyatt’s seat after the Russian driver crashed for the second time that season and was demoted to Torro Rosso.
Max’s first race for Red Bull became a fairy tale. Both Mercedes drivers collided after 3 corners and Max, who qualified 4th on the grid, was able to take the lead. In the final stage of the race, he was under heavy pressure from Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen. Raikkonen's last win was in 2013, and had not scored a win since his comeback with Ferrari. The Dutchman showed his excellent racing skills and at the age of 18, was able to stay ahead of the faster Ferrari to win his first ever Grand Prix!
Throughout the season, Verstappen grew by the minute and made the races much more entertaining. The very wet and rainy race in Brazil was probably his best race that season. After an extra pit stop (his 5th in the race) to switch from intermediates back to wet tires, he was in 16th place. With only 16 laps to go, he was on a catch-up mission that took him into third place. He received high praise from his team boss Christian Horner who called it "one of the best driver performances I've ever seen in Formula One" in an interview with Sky F1.
Max ended his first season in F1 in 5th place, with Nico Rosberg winning the championship.
Expectations were high in 2017 after Verstappens' excellent performance in the final races of 2016. Max won 2 races and a total of 4 podiums in 2017, but poor reliability and collisions with Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen limited his performance to 6th place in the 2017 Drivers' Championship just behind his teammate Daniel Ricciardo.
In 2018, Max started the year with difficulties, both from the car and with some mistakes of his own. In FP3 of the Monaco GP, he crashed which prevented him from participating in qualifying. He was given a five-place grid penalty after he had to change his gearbox, but since he was unable to participate in qualifying, this penalty had no consequences for his place on the starting grid. He fought his way through the streets of Monaco, ending in 9th place. He saw his teammate Daniel Ricciardo take his place on the highest step of the podium, and make the famous dive into the Red Bull pool afterwards.
Verstappen improved a lot and finished the year strongly with two wins, one in Austria and another in Mexico - as well as with a total of 11 podiums.
From 2019 onwards, Red Bull’s motors were supplied by Honda, and they started the season successfully with a podium in Australia. In Austria, Max brought Honda their first win since the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix after a stunning final lap and a battle with Charles Leclerc for the win.
At the German GP, he remained calm after a spin and took his seventh Grand Prix win. At Hungary, Max took the first Pole Position of his career and had a strong performance on Sunday. However, Hamilton overtook him due to a good strategy by Mercedes, with four laps to go, which paid off.
With three wins, two official pole positions, and a third place in the drivers championship, 2019 was Max’s best Formula 1 season to date.
In January 2020, Red Bull announced a three-year contract extension that would keep Max Verstappen with the team until the end of the 2023 season. The news relieved pressure on both the team and driver, as the market was expected to cause a major commotion in Formula 1 in 2021.
During winter testing for the 2020-season, the new RB16 seemed a formidable opponent for Mercedes and it was to be expected that this was going to be the season to attack Mercedes. Due to the Coronavirus pandemic however, many changes were made to the calendar, and the season started with a double-header at the Red Bull Ring in Austria in July. The race ended disastrously for Verstappen due to problems with the Honda engine.
Max’s performance was solid that year, consistently scoring podiums in usually the grid's second best car behind the Mercedes. He won the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix at Silverstone where tires were the main concern, as the Red Bull was the best car in that regard.
For the rest of the season, he had some bad luck, but managed to fight Valtteri Bottas for P2 in the championship until later on in the year. Still, he finished third in the standings behind the two Mercedes, and added his 10th F1 win to his resume with a perfect, dominant drive in the 2020 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix from Pole Position.
Back To The Present...
Max started the current F1 season well by taking pole position at the season opener (2021 Bahrain GP). In an exciting race, in which he and reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton alternated for the lead, it was uncertain until the very end who would win this first Grand Prix. With four laps to go, Max passed Lewis’ Mercedes on the outside of the fourth corner while exceeding track limits, and as a result, had to give his position back to Hamilton, having to settle for second place.
In Imola, Italy, Max crossed the line in first, and Lewis second, with the Brit kept his first place in the Championship standings thanks to an extra point for the fastest lap.
The third and fourth races of this season took place in Portugal and Spain respectively, with Verstappen coming close to Hamilton's Mercedes but eventually finishing second in both races. The 2021 Monaco Grand Prix was Verstappen’s second win of this season. Thanks to this victory, and the fact that Lewis Hamilton ended in 7th place, he became the first Dutchman to ever lead the World Championship.
The cars raced in the streets of Baku for the Azerbaijan Formula 1 Grand Prix. Max started from third position, took the lead by overtaking Leclerc on lap 7, and then had a quicker tire stop compared to Hamilton. He kept the lead until a tire blowout put an early end to his race on lap 46 and brought out a red flag. At the restart of the race, Lewis Hamilton had a braking-related error, flew out of the first corner, and crossed the finish line last. Due to this mistake, Hamilton did not score any points, and Max preserved his first place position in the standings.
With the French GP right around the corner, the Dutchman is still leading, although the gap with Hamilton is close and Max has to keep performing at his best to maintain his seat on the throne. Max seems to be having a great season, and the RB16B seems to be fast enough to give Mercedes a tough time - as we have been seeing in the past six races. Both Max and Lewis have made mistakes, both have at times seized opportunities, and both have performed damage limitation. There really is very little to choose between the two, and if either delivers the perfect race, the win can be theirs.
The 2021-season promises to be exciting, where young Max might just convert his dreams into reality by becoming the first Dutch driver to ever win the World Championship.
Let’s keep our fingers crossed, cheer, jump, and dance along with The Orange Army - and see what this season will bring Max Verstappen.
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