5 things you need to know about Max Verstappen (2024)

Having grown up in the F1 paddock, it’s mind-boggling to think that even though Max Verstappen is 25 years old, he has been notching up victories in F1 since 2016 and has been feted as the driver of his generation since his earliest days in karting. Here are five facts about the Flying Dutchman.

Signed to RedBull Junior Team in August 2014, Max made his F1 debut with Toro Rosso – now AlphaTauri – in Free Practice at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix, aged 17 and three days, becoming the youngest driver to take part in an F1 race weekend. He made his race debut as the youngest driver of all time at the 2015 Australian Grand Prix, aged 17 and 166 days and, two weeks later, became the youngest driver ever to score world championship points (17 and 180 days) when he finished seventh at the Malaysian Grand Prix.

One year on, he scored his first victory in F1 on his debut for RedBull Racing at the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix, standing on the top step aged 18 and 228 days – that made him the youngest race winner in F1 and simultaneously the youngest driver to stand on the podium. On the way, he became the youngest driver to lead an F1 race. At the 2016 Brazilian Grand Prix, he became the youngest driver to set a fastest lap (19 and 44 days). Fast forward to 2021 and the Austrian Grand Prix where Max became the youngest driver to set a Grand Chelem (23 and 277 days) taking pole, fastest lap and victory while leading every lap of the race at the RedBull Ring.

In his debut season in the F3 European Championship in 2014, Max won seven races with Van Amersfoort Racing and was quickly signed to a contract by Helmut Marko for the RedBull Junior Team. Coming into his home Grand Prix a decade later, and he’s on a brilliant run of eight F1 victories in a row. Max heads to Zandvoort on a hat-trick of wins at the North Holland circuit and is the hot favorite to win the 2023 Dutch Grand Prix and draw level with Sebastian Vettel’s record of nine consecutive wins in the World Championship.

… although not anymore, because it’s now Max. Max’s father is Jos “The Boss” Verstappen, who was team-mates with Michael Schumacher at Benetton and raced in Formula One for eight years, scoring two podiums – although he’s best known for his miraculous escape from a pit fire at Hockenheim in 1994. In fact, Max’s mother Sophie Kumpen was also a successful racing driver who raced in the lower leagues against Jenson Button, Giancarlo Fisichella and even a young Christian Horner.

Even while in F1, Jos devoted his free time to teaching Max to race, nurturing his talent from age four by acting as his mentor, manager and chief mechanic. He teamed up with Richard Pex, bought a camper van, and hit the road with Max, Richard and his three sons Yard, Jorrit and Stan, to race in the karting hotbed of Italy. “We went everywhere together,” says Jos. “And we became increasingly professional. We tuned up the engines to establish a test bench and then we’d drive constantly back and forth to Italy, the Mecca of karting, to buy equipment.” The Pex boys are still Max’s best friends to this day.

Away from the F1 co*ckpit and the sim at RedBull Racing HQ in Milton Keynes, Max enjoys gaming and competing in e-sport races racing the official Formula 1 game as well as in the racing simulation iRacing. Partnering with the first ever iRacing World Champions, Team Redline, he won the Virtual Le Mans Series in 2019 including a win at the Virtual 24 Hours of Spa with Lando Norris sharing the driving duties.

… and he’s won them all. Although he competes under a Dutch license, Max was born on September 30, 1997, in Hasselt, Belgium, and has dual Dutch and Belgian nationalities. So both the Dutch and Belgian Grands Prix are home races for the World Champion – and he’s won twice at Zandvoort in F1 and three times at Spa. He lives in Monaco and spent a lot of his childhood in the Principality, making Monaco his home-from-home Grand Prix which he won in 2021 and 2023.

RedBull Racing compete under the Austrian flag which means the RedBull Ring is a second home to the former RedBull Junior Team graduate and therefore another home race. He's won five times in Spielberg, four Austrian Grands Prix and once at the Styrian Grand Prix in 2021. But RedBull Racing is based in Milton Keynes in the UK, making the British Grand Prix an unofficial home race for the team and Max scored a thrilling win at Silverstone earlier this year. And the half? Max’s other half is Kelly Piquet, daughter of Brazilian F1 World Champion Nelson Piquet, and Max took victory in Sao Paulo in 2019.

His favorite food is tomato soup.

Learn more about the Dutch driver by listening to the Becoming Max Verstappen episode of the Beyond the Ordinary podcast.