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Max Verstappen's 6.5 of the best
Max Verstappen celebrated his 20th birthday with a win at the Malaysian Grand Prix. Let's take a look back at some of the best drives in his career so far.
Max Verstappenstarted his 20s with a commanding, mature victory in at the Malaysian Grand Prix that belied his lack of years and also compensated for the seven retirements that have blighted his season. Verstappen has been one of the most talk-about prospects in Formula One since before his debut with Toro Rosso, when he became the youngest driver to ever race in F1. Here's a look at some of his most impressive races in Formula Oneto date.
2015 Malaysian Grand Prix – qualified sixth, finished seventh
Max Verstappen is F1’s youngest points scorer
© Peter Fox/Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
There's no such thing as consensus in F1, but it came close when Max Verstappen was announced as a Toro Rosso driver for 2015. He was too young and didn't have enough experience. On his debut he would be 17 years and 166 days old, almost two years younger than Jaime Alguesuari had been when he set the existing record. On top of that, Verstappen hadn't raced anything more powerful than a Formula 3 car. The knives were out before he even had his first seat fitting.
Verstappen seemed wholly indifferent to the hubbub. He had an excellent debut in Australia, qualifying 11th and running in the points before suffering an engine failure. Having had a sighter, he did much better second time out, qualifying sixth and finishing seventh, beating his team-mate and both Red Bulls. He was mildly annoyed with the result, struggling with poor braking performance for the first 15 laps, but no one questioned his age or experience after that. The doubters had begun to change their tune
Learn more about the Dutch driver by listening to the Becoming Max Verstappen episode of the Beyond the Ordinary podcast.
2015 United States Grand Prix – ninth to fourth
Verstappen celebrates P4 with his team
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The only Grand Prix weekends wetter than Austin in 2015 have all involved power boats – and Circuit of the Americas could have given some of them a run for their money. Qualifying was cancelled on Saturday and was abandoned again on Sunday, halfway through proceedings. Verstappen started ninth. The race started very wet, but got progressively drier and the constantly changing conditions making the race a good one for the drivers with that instinctive feel for grip. Verstappen had that in spades, rising through the field to finish fourth.
2016 Spanish Grand Prix – victory
F1's first teenage winner, Max Verstappen
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Red Bull Racing were pretty brutal in demoting Daniil Kvyat a couple of races after the Russian had stood on the podium in China. After Verstappen's debuthowever, while plenty of people were happy to grumble about the inelegance of the decision, nobody was suggesting it wasn't a good one.
With very little prep time, Verstappen simply jumped into the RB12, learnt the characteristics of the car and won the race. Verstappen, in what has become his signature style, low-balled it afterwards saying he did OK, got lucky with the Mercedes drivers falling over each other, and lucky again to get the 'good' strategy to Daniel's 'bad' one – but the fact remains he took a debut grand prix win while holding off two charging Ferraris in a new car where he still didn't know what all the buttons did. It's difficult to imagine tougher circumstances to become a grand prix winner.
2016 Brazilian Grand Prix – fourth to third (via 16th)
Leading Nico Rosberg in the rain back in 2016
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Everyone remembers the titanic battle between Gilles Villeneuve and René Arnoux in the final laps of the 1979 French Grand Prix, but everyone forgets they were fighting for second and Jean-Pierre Jabouille was a comfortable 15 seconds up the road winning the race. The 2016 Brazilian Grand Prixis like that: everyone remembers a thrilling drive through the field from Verstappen in impossible conditions, but forgets Lewis Hamilton driving a faultless race to win in the same conditions.
Actually, while Verstappen had a great Brazilian Grand Prix, he didn’t have a particular good race. He gambled and lost with tyre choices and had to perform a minor miracle to catch a spin, all of which left him in P16 with 14 laps remaining. It's what he did in those 14 laps, to drag himself up to third that everyone remembers, though. It was mesmerising, like Verstappen was driving on a different (presumably much drier) surface to everyone else. Sure of his braking points, decisive in his overtaking moves. Proper star quality.
2017 Chinese Grand Prix – 16th to third
Verstappen's gutsy drive to third in China
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The charge through the field after an unfortunate (and blame-free) earlier reverse is the staple of motorsport movies. Verstappen had the real-world equivalent in China earlier this year, but without the mysteriously potent but previously unused extra gear that seems to help in most films.
Max qualified 19th and started 16th in China, thanks to a combination of a misfiring engine and unfortunately timed double-waved yellow flags. Starting in the wet (of course), Verstappen simply drove through the field on the first lap, picking off cars left and right to finish it in P7. After that, things got tougher, but he managed to keep making the places, including a pass on Daniel Ricciardo that was a not-insignificant marker in a tough intra-team battle, and then hold off a hard-charging Ricciardo on fresher rubber at the very end.
2017 Malaysian Grand Prix
Max Verstappen celebrates his win in Malaysia
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
It's difficult to make a case for the race being a classic Max Verstappen effort, because he didn't particularly have to do very much of anything and didn't have to contend with the extremely rapid Ferraris. This shouldn't detract from the fact that the reason Verstappen didn't have to do very much was because he did everything he needed to do very well indeed.
His first task was to out qualify the demon qualifier Daniel Ricciardo, which he did. His second task was to pass championship leader and pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton for the lead, which he did. His final task then was to build a gap and bring the car home, which he completed in a very low key way. Usually it's the drama that signifies a great drive, but in Sepang the absence of drama did the same. Make no mistake, this was a fabulous effort for the former teenager.
And finally...
Of course, being a natural contrarian, were you to ask Verstappen about his best race, he wouldn’t list any of those. According to the man himself you have to go back to 2013 and the World KZ Championship at Varennes-sur-Allier, France. Verstappen won the coveted KZ1 title, the highest category in karting, open only to those 15 and over. He, naturally, was 15 at the time.
