Why Verstappen was ready for F1 at 17

The question is one Max Verstappen became very well-practised at answering during the Belgian Grand Prix weekend. Following the shock revelation that he would make his Formula 1 debut for Scuderia Toro Rosso next season at the age of 17, how could a driver so young and in only their first season of car racing possibly be ready, even if he is excelling in the hugely competitive Formula 3 European Championship.

“Age is just a number,” he says. “It’s on the track where you have to show what you can do. But I always made big steps – from karting to F3 was a big step, but it was a different environment because my dad was also an F1 driver. I’m ready for it.”

Mention of Max’s father, Jos, is a warning that the Verstappens have been here before. Twenty years ago, Jos was a 22-year-old with a huge reputation whose stunning F1 test for Footwork had made him an Autosport cover star before he had come close to starting a grand prix. But, after being drafted in to race for Benetton in place of the injured JJ Lehto at the start of the 1994 season, things never quite came together for him.

After a couple of podiums in that stop/start first season, a few extraordinary performances aside, notably hauling the unfancied Simtek as high as sixth in the 1995 Argentinian GP before retiring, his career reads like that of a journeyman. He should have achieved more, meaning Jos doesn’t just know how difficult it is to translate ability into results, he has lived it.

“I had the bad luck that I was next to Michael Schumacher when I started in F1, I should have started in a lower team,” says Verstappen Sr. “I came into F1 after two years in which I did about 50 races, Max will have done around 45 but he has done a lot more in a go-kart. He is better prepared and the world has changed.

“In all kinds of sports, people are younger. In F1, the cars are completely different to the ones in my time and the tracks are different. When I made a mistake at a chicane, I was in a gravel trap, now when you brake too late there is asphalt you can use and drive back on circuit.

“I made too many mistakes and I was compared to the best driver in the whole world. But, with Max, we have a longer deal, not just a one-year contract. So Max will get the time and Red Bull will prepare Max a lot better. He can handle it.”

Verstappen Sr has been nurturing his son’s talent for a long time, even forsaking his own racing career to focus on it. Max started learning in a kart at the age of just four. Initially, it was just a fun way for a father and son to pass the time, but it soon became clear to Jos that there was some serious talent there. Given that Max doesn’t just have racing DNA on the paternal side – his mother is Sophie Kumpen, who had a very successful karting career – it is perhaps no surprise that he had raw ability in abundance.

Speaking to Jos at length about his son’s development it becomes clear that nurture has played more of a part than nature.

“It’s natural talent and it’s education,” he says. “The way he overtakes is natural talent but there are things you have to do to understand that talent. You have to teach them, analyse overtaking, watch F1. He is always watching what to do and how to overtake other people.

“I’ll give you an example. He was winning a lot when he was young. At the time, we had standing starts and people would have put a bit of oil on the clutch to have a better start. I didn’t do that. I liked him to come out of the first corner in fourth because I wanted him to race. He always overtook easily and, although people were saying his engine was stronger, I think it was due to keeping speed up in the corner.

“Working with him for so long, I have seen him do incredible things. His ability is very high and I really think he can do it, but it’s difficult to say as a father because every father admires their son” Jos Verstappen

“At times I told him you’re not allowed to overtake on a straight, and that you can’t overtake there or there. I wanted him to overtake in different places to make it hard for him.”

The gut reaction is that this seems apocryphal, more about myth-making than the truth. But look at Max’s career to date and it rings true. In winning the CIK-FIA World KZ Championship kart title last year, Max had to battle his way up from third, while in F3 this season he has made a habit of overtaking in unexpected places. The quality of his education has shone through in every facet of his F3 campaign against vastly more experienced opposition to the point where many of his rivals regard him as the most intelligent in the field.

When the idea of a jump straight into F1 was originally raised by Red Bull Junior Team boss Helmut Marko, Jos claims to have been sceptical. But the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. Max is a driver who has been consistently pushed and challenged during his career; just winning was never enough. And, while Jos has clearly been a hard taskmaster at times, the fact Max has come through it so well to date suggests he is made of the kind of steel that won’t buckle under the pressure of F1.

Jos Verstappen’s influence on his son’s junior career prepared him to make his F1 debut aged 17

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images

“Working with him for so long, I have seen him do incredible things,” says Jos. “His ability is very high and I really think he can do it, but it’s difficult to say as a father because every father admires their son. But we have something really special and I helped him, helped to create him, to push him and to be in the right equipment.”

The question is not whether a 17-year-old can race in F1. The question is whether this 17-year-old can. Verstappen is certainly an exceptional prospect and very possibly one of those rare, once-in-a-generation talents.

The view from F3

Frits van Amersfoort, whose team has run Verstappen in his rookie season of car racing in the F3 European Championship, had no doubts that the 16-year-old could cut it in F3. But F1? That could be a different story.

Van Amersfoort, who ran Max’s father Jos in Formula Opel Lotus in 1992, played a big part in badgering the Verstappens to bypass Formula Renault in favour of a leap straight to F3.

“We immediately felt that Max is a special guy and that he was capable of the jump to F3,” says van Amersfoort. “When you do 20 or more Formula Renault tests and you’re quick all the time – every time – then why not? Then he tested an F3 car for the first time with Motopark [in a German F3-spec machine at Valencia] and it felt like a better-fitting suit than the Renault – it was worth the gamble.”

Will F1 be the same? “I’ve read a lot of comments from F1 drivers who are a bit critical,” he continues, “and I understand. But, in the end, let’s see what happens.

“Everyone knows F1 is a hard life and either he makes it in one or two years or he is gone. From the point of view of driving he will make it; he is as one with his machine and for him it won’t matter if that’s F1, F3 or a kart. But of course in F1 there’s a lot more around it – you need other qualities.”

Verstappen was an instant success on his move up to single-seater racing

Photo by: Sutton Images

What van Amersfoort has no doubt about is Verstappen’s talent: “One important aspect that all brilliant drivers have is they know instinctively where to gain time. You can talk for hours about data, but when a driver feels it from instincts that gives you a big leap.”

What many forget is that Verstappen’s first time in the current-spec F3 car and engine was a shakedown at Czech track Most on 1 April, on the way to the official Euro F3 tests. Most of his rookie rivals had done several days the previous autumn in the latest chassis, if not the latest powerplants.

He was fastest on the very first day of official testing, at the Hungaroring…

“I made a Tweet not so long ago that I have run out of superlatives for Max,” says van Amersfoort. “What more can I say? The guy keeps amazing you.

“It was extraordinary – the confidence, speed and car control. On his first pushing lap, Sarah and I just looked at each other and then at Jos, and said to him, ‘Are you sure this is his first time in a car?’” Tony Shaw

“He’s such a nice kid, and he helps everybody [including his team-mates] if they’re interested. He and his father are always first at the track and the last to leave. It’s amazing how much drive those two have.”

Verstappen’s first test

British engineer Tony Shaw, who worked with Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton in their Formula Renault days, is pretty proud to have run Verstappen during his first test in a car.

Shaw and wife Sarah have – along with ex-racer Jeremy Cotterill – run the Dutch-owned Manor MP Motorsport Formula Renault team since they shut up shop on their Manor Competition squad at the end of 2011.

A little over a year after his first test in a car of any kind at Pembrey in 2013, Verstappen was making his F1 test debut at Toro Rosso

Photo by: Sutton Images

Verstappen had two days in August 2013 with Manor MP at Pembrey, and the south Wales track ran through its trademark climatic changes.

“It was away from prying eyes, just how I like testing,” says Shaw. “An exclusive run-out without any pressure, with nobody else there. A lovely, unpressured environment.”

So far, so good, until Verstappen got behind the wheel…

“We were standing at The Crossing. It was extraordinary – the confidence, speed and car control. On his first pushing lap, Sarah and I just looked at each other and then at Jos, and said to him, ‘Are you sure this is his first time in a car?’

“He followed all his instructions totally without problem, and used 20% less brain power than anyone else to do it because he has so much natural ability. We knew after five laps that this is as good as we’ve ever seen.”

In a parallel universe, maybe Verstappen would have taken the conventional karting-to-Renault step with Manor MP. “We wanted him in the team, but it’s probably right that he did what he’s done,” says Shaw. “In Renault it doesn’t take long for there to be a few little upsets, and he was ready for F3 without a shadow of doubt.

“In fact, he’s ready for F1. He 1000% deserves it and I can’t see him f****** it up!”

The signs were all there back in 2014 that Verstappen was an F1 world champion in the making

Photo by: Sutton Images