Skip to main content

F1’s newest star takes it to the max

OK, he probably wouldn’t have managed it if Rosberg & Hamilton hadn’t wound up in a gravel trap, but Max Verstappen bagged his first Formula 1 win last weekend. At the age of 18.

I remember being pretty obsessed about things that meant a lot to me when I was 18. Getting into my ultra-skinny jeans took a lot of time, and getting out of them required degrees of skill and concentration that probably should have gained my some kind of award.

Then there was the styling mousse. Back when I had luxurious locks, I was carrying around enough highly flammable material on my head that a stray spark could have taken out a small town.

By the time he reached 18, ridiculously youthful Formula 1 star Max had already got nearly a full year of motor racing at the top level under his belt. At which point he was old enough to take his driving test.

Racing since he was four and a half years old, Max appeared in F1 last year to a barrage of criticism about his age. There were some unforced errors, but also some startling displays of skill and confidence.

With a sudden switch from Red Bull’s junior team to the top one after just 4 races this year, and up against a tough team-mate, it was assumed he’d struggle a bit in his first outing in an unfamiliar car.

After title protagonists Nico Rosberg and out-of-luck Lewis Hamilton disappeared dramatically in a cloud of dust, bits of broken car and acrimony, we were presented with a scintillating and tense battle between four drivers – two world champions, one proven race winner and Max, who hadn’t even been on the podium before (and may have had issues with underage drinking if he had).

As different tyre strategies played out, Max found himself in the lead, but never more than a few seconds ahead of his rivals. A tiny mistake – running slightly wide, a brief lock-up – would have seen him applauded widely for bagging a place on the podium, but he stayed calm and inch-perfect under enormous pressure.

Crossing the line, he became F1’s youngest winner ever, scoring more points in under two hours than his dad, ex F1-racer Jos, managed in his entire career.

It seems unlikely that his youthful record will be beaten, too. After his entry into the big time last year, the sport’s governing body raised the minimum age for a racing licence to 18. Anyone wanting to beat Max’s record will have 227 days, presuming they hop in the car and start their first race on their birthday.

What next for the teenager then? He beat former World Champion Kimi Raikkonen, twice his age, to the chequered flag, and whilst a championship run seems highly unlikely this season, he could easily have 15 years in which to win the ultimate prize.

Judging from last Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix, who’s to say he won’t manage that multiple times?

Is he talented? To the Max.

This post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in the North West Evening Mail, on the 20th of May 2016. The paper dropped "newest" from the title. probably to keep it to 2 lines!

Genuinely was an edge-of-the-seat race, after a jaw-dropping first lap. It'll be interesting to see what Max can manage this weekend in Monaco - lest we forget, he had a major fumble last year, going into the back of someone, immediately followed by a sizable meet'n'greet with the barriers. Lesson learnt? 

(CD A-Z interrupted for some new ones I received as birthday presents, including the one currently occupying the cans: a-ha's "Stay On These Roads" 2CD deluxe edition. Listening to disc 2, where Morten appears to have forgotten the words to The Living Daylights...)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A fisful of change at the shops

A recent day out reminded me how much the retail experience has altered during my lifetime – and it’s not all good. I could stop typing this, and buy a fridge, in a matter of seconds. The shops are shut and it’s 9pm, but I could still place the order and arrange delivery. I haven’t got to wander round a white-goods retail emporium trying to work out which slightly different version of something that keeps my cider cold is better. It’ll be cheaper, too. But in amongst the convenience, endless choice and bargains, we’ve lost some of the personal, human, touches that used to make a trip to the shops something more than just a daily chore. Last weekend, we visited a local coastal town. Amongst the shops selling over-priced imported home accessories (who doesn’t need another roughly-hewn wooden heart, poorly painted and a bargain at £10?) was one that looked different. It’s window allowed you to see in, rather than being plastered with stick-on graphics and special offers calling ...

Making an exhibition of yourself

Now and again, it’s good to reaffirm that you’re a (relatively) normal human being. One excellent way of doing this is to go to a business exhibition. Despite what you might have surmised from reading my previous columns, I am employable, and even capable of acting like a regular person most of the time, even joining in the Monday morning conversation about the weather over the weekend, and why (insert name of footyballs manager here) should be fired immediately. The mug! True, there are times, often involving a caffeine deficiency, where it is like having the distilled essence of ten moody teenagers in the room, but I try and get that out of the way when people I genuinely like aren’t around to see it. As part of my ongoing experiment with what others call ‘working’, my ‘job’ involves me occasionally needing to go and see what some of my colleagues get up to outside the office, and what our competitors do to try and make sure that they do whatever my colleagues do better than ...

Shouting in the social media mirror

It was always tricky to fit everything you wanted into the intentionally short character count of Twitter, especially when, like me, you tend to write ridiculously long sentences that keep going on and on, with no discernible end in sight, until you start wondering what the point was in the first place. The maximum length of a text message originally limited a tweet to 140 characters, due to it being a common way to post your ramblings in Twitter’s early days. Ten years later, we’ve largely consigned texting to the tech dustbin, and after a lot of angst, the social media platform’s bigwigs have finally opted to double your ranting capacity to 280. Responses ranged from “You’ve ruined it! Closing my account!” to the far more common “Meh” of modern disinterest. As someone rightly pointed out, just because you have twice as much capacity doesn’t mean you actually have to use it. It is, of course, and excellent opportunity to use the English language correctly and include punctuat...