Verstappen became the youngest driver to start a World Championship race by entering the sport joining Toro Rosso.
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Max Emilian Verstappen is a Belgian-Dutch racing driver and the 2021 Formula One World Champion. He was born September 30, 1997 in Hasselt, Belgium to Jos Verstappen and Sophie Kumpen, and has a younger sister, Victoria. He competes under the Dutch flag in Formula One with Red Bull Racing. His father Joe Verstappen is a former Formula 1 driver. At the 2015 Australian Grand Prix, when he was aged 17 years, 166 days, he became the youngest driver to compete in Formula One. At the age of 18, he won the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix on his debut for Red Bull Racing, becoming the youngest-ever driver and the first Dutch driver to win a Formula One Grand Prix
After spending the 2015 season with Scuderia Toro Rosso, Verstappen started his 2016 campaign with the Italian team before being promoted to parent team Red Bull Racing after four races as a replacement for Daniil Kvyat. After winning the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Verstappen became the first Dutch driver to win the Formula One World Championship, and the 34th Formula One World Drivers’ Champion. Verstappen is due to remain at Red Bull until at least the end of the 2028 season after signing a contract extension.
Verstappen’s father bought him a go-kart when he was four-and-a-half. Verstappen won his first race, aged seven, against competitors who were as old as eleven. Aged nine he was a champion in Belgium and the Netherlands. To support Max’s racing career, Arrows F1 driver Jos Verstappen retired from Formula One and turned his attention exclusively to his son. In 2009, Verstappen joined Team Pex Racing, a CRG customer team. That year, he won the Flemish Minimax championship and the Belgian KF5 championship
Verstappen stepped up to international karting in 2010. He was signed by CRG to race in their factory team at the World and European championships. At the KF3 World Cup, Verstappen finished second to the more experienced Alexander Albon (who would eventually become his Formula One teammate at Red Bull Racing) but beat him at the WSK Euro Series and also won the WSK World Series, beating Robert Vișoiu. In 2011, Verstappen won the WSK Euro Series in a Parilla-powered CRG.
Max in his Grand Prix debut as a full-time driver at the 2015 Australian Grand Prix at the age of 17 years, 166 days broke Jaime Alguersuari’s existing record of becoming the youngest driver by almost two years. In this first race, Verstappen ran in points-scoring positions until he was forced to retire due to an engine failure. However, at the subsequent race in Malaysia, Verstappen qualified sixth and finished the race in seventh place, scoring his first Formula One points.
At the 2015 Monaco Grand Prix, Verstappen was involved in a high-speed collision with Romain Grosjean, after clipping the back of Grosjean’s Lotus on the approach to the tight first corner, Sainte Devote, and crashed into the barriers at high speed. Verstappen was given a five-place grid penalty for causing the accident, and was branded “dangerous” by Williams driver Felipe Massa.
Verstappen became the youngest driver to start a World Championship race by entering the sport a year before the new license restriction, joining Toro Rosso with Carlos Sainz as his teammate. In his Grand Prix debut as a full-time driver at the 2015 Australian Grand Prix at the age of 17 years, 166 days breaking Jaime Alguersuari’s existing record by almost two years. He scored his first Formula One points in malaysian GP aged 17 years, 180 days, breaking the record of the then-youngest driver to score World Championship points
At the end of the 2015 season, Verstappen received three awards at the FIA Prize Giving Ceremony, for “Rookie of the Year”, “Personality of the Year” and “Action of the Year”, for his overtake on Felipe Nasr on the outside of the Blanchimont corner at the Belgian Grand Prix. He is the first Dutch driver to win the Formula 1 World Championship.
| Races | 145 |
| Wins | 22 |
| Poles | 14 |
| Podiums | 62 |
| Points | 1616.5 |
Max Verstappen’s favorite number is 3, he always stayed with 3, no matter what he did in terms of racing. When he entered Formula 1, Daniel Ricciardo already had number 3. Since he couldn’t take the number 3 he added another 3 to it and took 33 instead. After winning the F1 world championship in 2021, Verstappen donned number 1 for the 2022 season, a privilege only championship winners have.
