The brand new two-time F1 world champion was forged under the strict tutelage of his father Jos Verstappen, former partner of Michael Schumacher
The 25-year-old Dutchman shares his success with Kelly Piquet, the daughter of three-time F1 world champion Nelson Piquet
Max Verstappen He was just 17 years, 5 months and 15 days old when he made his Formula 1 debut with Toro Rosso, then the Red Bull affiliate team. An absolute record for earliness, ahead of Stroll (18), Alguersuari Y Alonso (19). Quickly, he also became the youngest driver to score points and win a Grand Prix, at 18 years and 228 days. That happened in 2016, on the weekend that would change her life forever. Max arrived at the Circuit de Barcelona recently promoted to Red Bull and after the accident of hamilton Y Rossberg in the first corner, he inherited the lead of the race and resisted until the end to win his first victory. To achieve his first world crown he had to wait five years, but the second has come consecutively and much more forcefully.
A Maxwho turned 25 a week ago, missed the precocity record of Vettel, champion with 23 years and 4 months. “What does it matter & rdquor ;, he said in full euphoria, after the most hectic weekend of his sports career, the one that he excelled last season in Abu Dhabi. This year he has not moved thinking about the statistics either, although with four races to go he can still break the record for victories in the same season (13), since in Suzuka he has reached 12.
The suffering and pressure he experienced in 2021 to win his first crown tested his character and a strong will that Max forged under the influence of his father, Jos, a former Formula 1 driver and in his day mate Michael Schumacher. Less nerves have passed this year to be crowned for the second time, forging an already insurmountable advantage for Ferrari and Leclerc after the summer break.
a prodigious talent
Born on September 30, 1997 in Hasselt, Belgium, 40 minutes from the famous Spa Francorchamps circuit, but nationalized Dutch, Max received his first go-kart when he was 4 years old and began to compete at 7, always guided by his father, who ran 106 Grand Prix in Formula 1 between 1994 and 2003. Although more than once the excessively severe methods that Jos used to guide the sports career of his talented son, the two-time champion defends him. “He gave up his career to help me. How many fathers do this? You can see many fathers who enjoy their careers so much that they don’t have too much time for their children and to be involved. But my father did that, and I’m very grateful to him because without him I would not be here “.
Nevertheless, Max Verstappen did not get to Formula 1 because he was the son of Jos Verstappen. In his meteoric rise, after winning the 2013 karting world championship and playing a single season in the European F3, convincing his class and talent to Helmut Marko, director of the Red Bull Young Driver Development Program and right-hand man of the owner of the energy drink company Dieter Mateschitz, who once considered him “a driver that appears one every ten years & rdquor ;.
At 16 years old, in August 2014, Verstappen knew that he was going to replace Jean Eric Vergne at Toro Rosso the following season and one day before turning 17 he received the Super License to race in Formula 1 as a gift. A few days later, he got into a single-seater for the first time in practice 1 at the Japanese Grand Prix. And on March 15, 2015, at the age of 17 years, 5 months and 15 days, he began to write his success story.
Discreet, although increasingly media, Verstappen has become a true idol of the masses. The ‘orange tide’ follows him through the circuits of half the world. “I was never ‘Mad Max.’ I’m just Max, a professional driver who tries to achieve the best result for his team & rdquor ;, underlines that of Red Bull, who denies his nickname and has refused to appear as a protagonist in the successful Netflix ‘Drive to Survive’: “They take out the contextual things, they make us look like heroes or villains when we are just pilots & rdquor ;, he argues.
His personal life also flows in harmony. In January 2021 she officially confirmed her relationship with kelly picket, nine years older than him and former partner of the Russian Daniil Kvyat, with whom he has a 3-year-old daughter, Penelope. The beautiful young woman, who has worked in Formula E and is also a regular in the F1 paddock, is the daughter of the great Nelson Piquet, triple Formula 1 world champion (1981, 1983 and 1987).