Racing Max Verstappen
Soon to become F1’s youngest-ever driver, our man Ollie has already raced him. And lost
PLANET / RACING MAX
MAX VERSTAPPEN
is a likely F1 star of the future, having signed with Toro Rosso recently. He’s been racing karts since he was four, but has never raced a car. Until now
ax Verstappen is causing problems for Ferrari. It’s not the frst time. There have been accusations of favouritism with the engines, tempers have fared and comments have appeared on social media. Worse still, parents have got involved.
No, I haven’t got ahead of myself here. In fact, this is a few months ago, well before it was announced that Verstappen had joined Toro Rosso and would become the youngest F1 driver in history. It’s January, we’re in Miami for the Florida Winter Series and this is the frst time Max has ever raced a car.
The Florida Winter Series isn’t an ofcial racing championship, there are no points to be won, no title at the end of it. What it is, is a month-long, intensive driver training and racing programme. In exchange for a sum that nudges six fgures, you can come to Florida and be schooled in everything from nutrition and ftness to tactics and racecraft; from PR and TV to mechanics and engineering. Actually, you can’t just come and spend a month here. You have to be invited.
Because I haven’t told you the best bit yet. It’s run by Ferrari. They teach, you listen and – as a crafty side beneft – they also gain driving data, telemetry and personal knowledge on everyone that comes along. Something that might just prove handy somewhere down the line, if, say, a young prodigy was making the leap into F1 with a rival team…
So what we have here is a bunch of super-fast, super-talented, super-young future superstars. And me. I am over twice the age of the next oldest competitor. I’ve never raced a single-seater before. But that’s OK. Neither has Max.
Max has come straight from karts, which he’s been racing since he was four and a half. I don’t
Mknow diddly-squat about kart racing, but I do understand the word ‘won’. Max appears to have won everything in karts – seven championships in 2013 alone. Maybe this isn’t so surprising when you learn that Max has a genetic advantage. His mum was a successful kart racer in her own right, while his dad is, of course, Jos ‘The Boss’ Verstappen.
Jos is here, ruddier of face than when he was racing the last of his 107 GPs, bulky shoulders evidence that he learned his craft when cars had to be muscled around. He never won a race, only scored two podiums in total, but I remember him being great to watch. His son, it will become apparent, is a chip of the old block.
We’re at Miami Homestead race track and using half the oval banking, plus the tricky infeld section. Most of the 11 drivers here are already in F3 or GP2. They come from all over: Colombia, Italy, Russia,
“Here is a bunch of super
fast, future superstars”
Japan, Britain, Holland, Canada. Three are already Ferrari Driver Academy members. They’re like the cool kids at school – matching red uniforms, cliquey air, in-jokes. One of them has a Ferrari-collecting billionaire for a father, but the one that impresses me is Antonio Fuoco – he’s focused, quiet, dedicated and, the frst time I go out, is the only one that comes and checks my data traces.
The idea here is that there are no secrets – we’re all shown each other’s telemetry and on-board videos in classroom post-race debriefs. No punches are pulled – drivers are ticked of, points are argued, questions asked. It’s an open, honest forum, and you’re here to learn. But no one is as argumentative as Max. It takes balls to stand up to the teachers here – most are ex-F1 engineers and coaches, yet Max doesn’t back down. He’s convinced the Ferrari Academy guys have better engines in their 1.4-litre turbocharged 200bhp Formula Abarths, so he stands up in the class and says so.
Looking at the traces, I don’t think he’s got it right, but it’s hard for a 16-year-old to back down, especially one with little tact but a strong sense of fair play. He’s rubbed Ferrari up the wrong way, and they respond by posting the data on social media. Which is a cheap shot.
The meeting breaks up. Everyone else disperses, and Max, for all his boldness and bravura, looks close to tears. Next thing we know, Jos is there. He looks positively volcanic. Absolutely not a man you’d want to get on the wrong side of. FWC boss Luca Baldisseri is on his wrong side. From across the room I watch as this quietly spoken yet jovial chap takes the brunt of
gale-force Jos. Once the Dutchman has blown himself out, Luca comes back over to me, “F*****g hell, I was ready to be eaten alive.”
Yep, there are pushy parents at this level, too. And that’s not all: some of the drivers have their agents in tow – Anthony Hamilton is here, for instance – there are talent scouts, and politics is at work. I overheard one agent whispering to Luca that it wouldn’t be good PR if an Italian was to win the series, as it would seem like favouritism.
“No punches are pulled – drivers are ticked off, points are argued, questions asked”
But the Machiavellian schemes are for the pit lane. Out on the track, the racing is real. And I’m very slow. Slower even than I thought I’d be. The trouble is that anything with slicks ’n’ wings needs a totally diferent driving technique where everything hinges on your braking ability. You hit the pedal as hard as you can, dart straight to the apex (“Treat the corner as a V-shape, not a U” I’m told) and bleed of the brakes as the aerodynamic grip eases of. Time it perfectly and, when you reach the apex, you simply nail the gas – full throttle, no feathering. Time it wrong, and you lock the brakes/get understeer/oversteer/of-boost turbo, etc. But when I do nail a corner, I know it. It feels diferent. The thing is, I can’t replicate it, it doesn’t come instinctively.
Nuno Pinto, Ferrari’s driver coach, talks me round the circuit: “You have to get the frst corner right, as it leads into the complex where having the right line is vital.”
“You mean this corner?” I say, pointing to the curve at the end of the pit straight. “No, that’s fat-out. About 230kph [145mph].” I gulp and go back out, resolved to at least take that corner fat. After a handful of attempts, I did, heart in mouth, trusting the aero grip and surrendering myself to the g forces. It was all I could do to keep hold of the wheel as my vision blurred over the bumps. I tell this story as an indicator of what came next.
We’re racing. I’m somewhere near the back, desperately hanging on to the aerodynamic coat-tails of the faster cars ahead as we slipstream around
“We’re racing. I’m near the back, hanging on to the coat-tails of the cars ahead”
Homestead’s banking. I’m staggered by what I see ahead. Having got a tow of each other, the cars are four abreast down the main straight. They physically won’t ft through the fat frst corner. Then, suddenly, they’re fve abreast. Verstappen, having timed his tow to perfection, has darted inside, refused to lift, hit the bumpiest section, looks to be almost airborne, has nailed all four cars and got his braking right for that vital 90mph left-hander that follows. I literally cannot comprehend what I’ve just witnessed. I can’t even conceive as to how you could pass a single car there.
Later, I’m talking to Huub Rothengatter. He’s an ex-F1 driver (Niki Lauda nicknamed him Rattengott – god of the rats), was Jos’s agent and is now involved with Max. He tells me how good Max is, and I agree with him (I’ve since done some digging, and several highly regarded people have confrmed that Verstappen Jr is something special), but admits that, even so, he’ll need to take sponsorship to teams in order to get drives. Being quick in a racing car is like a public school scholarship – it just gets you a discount on your fees.
Above, Max is standing on the top step of the podium and looks genuinely delighted to be there. Huub has a bet with me that Max will be in F1 in 2017. I jokingly tell him it’ll be sooner than that. Huub, was it €50 we agreed on?