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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.
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
© Peter Fox/Getty Images
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
© Dan Istitene/Getty Images
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
© Getty Images
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
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
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.
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.
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.
