• Interview with Max Verstappen

Verstappen: Special or too much too young?

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Max Verstappen has always been competitive. At the age of four he saw a three-year-old in a go-kart and immediately pestered his father - Formula One driver Jos Verstappen - for a kart of his own. Jos had always insisted his son should wait until he was six to start racing, but for young Max another two years was an unimaginable length of time. Like any normal four-year-old, when he was told no by one parent he went straight to the other, and at the grand old age of four-and-a-half he persuaded his mother to convince his father to buy him a go-kart. Age limits, it seems, don't bother Max Verstappen, which is just as well as he embarks on his first season in Formula One at the record-breaking age of 17 this year.

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His arrival in F1 is firmly based on the theory that if you're good enough, you're old enough. The result has been a rapid progression to the top tier of the sport, and one that will be permanently inked in the history books when the FIA sets an 18-and-over age limit on obtaining an F1 superlicence next year. His debut at next month's Australian Grand Prix has been made into a big deal by fans and the media, but for Verstappen himself it's all he's ever known.

"For me it's a bit different because I have already grown up in an environment where I have to be very mature already," he explained to ESPN in a recent interview. "I don't really feel like a 17 year old because I've spent so much time with all the [F1] people already, so you have to behave already like an experienced guy. I got a lot of information from my dad when I was young about how to perform and how to behave, and also that you have to work very hard. I think all this together makes you a more mature and experienced guy.

"That's why - with all this media attention, the press and the launch [of the new car] - I'm not really impressed because I was always a part of it because of my dad."

Typically, professional sportsmen need to have a one-track mind to make it to the top of their game, and although teenage boys are well known for having one-track minds, they are not usually attuned to the qualities needed to be an F1 driver. But Verstappen is not a usual teenager.

"It was always my dream to get here so I did everything I could to get this chance," he says. "Since I was 10 or 12 years old I started to work for it in a professional way and you just give up things, but I don't really feel like I've missed out on being a teenager.

"Something with an engine on it interests me. Something that makes a bit of noise and you can smell the fuel, that interests me."

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The best way to focus the mind of an aspiring racing driver is to offer them the chance to join the best team in Formula One. However, for Verstappen last year there was not just one offer but two and they were arguably from the best two teams going: Mercedes and Red Bull. Red Bull had been monitoring Verstappen's progress from an early age but left him under the capable tutelage of his father while he was in go-karts. Last year Verstappen made the step up from karts to European Formula 3 and by the middle of his first season made headlines with a run of six race wins at Spa-Francorchamps and the Norisring. He was coming of age very quickly and it didn't take long before he had caught the eye of not just Red Bull but Mercedes' top management as well.

"Of course, when I was driving in F3 there was Mercedes. I was driving Volkswagen engines and we were competing against the Mercedes engines, so we got a bit in contact. We had good conversations with Toto [Wolff] and Niki [Lauda] and they were very open and honest, so we just had some conversations but no more than that."

When a three-time world champion like Lauda comes knocking at your door, you sit up and take notice. All of a sudden Verstappen had to make a career-defining choice with less than a full season in car racing under his belt. Fortunately for him, Red Bull made that decision a lot easier by playing its trump card and offering Verstappen a race seat at Toro Rosso for 2015. Yet Verstappen insists that was not the overriding factor.

"Of course an F1 contract helps, but also the feeling with Red Bull was very positive. In the end that made my decision."

He went on to finish third in the F3 title race and in doing so won more races than any of his opponents over the course of the year. He arrives in the F1 paddock with a relatively sparse trophy cabinet compared to his rivals, but as far as Verstappen is concerned he has achieved the most important goal of his junior career simply by getting a seat on the F1 grid.

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"We had a lot of technical issues [last year], and I know you shouldn't think like this, but if you just counted in the results we would have normally had we would have finished much higher [in F3]. In the end, in motorsport you can have some problems, so I don't really care. For me the main thing was to be here [in F1], even if you are not a champion in lower categories. You just have to perform when you are here."

And make no mistake, Verstappen will be expected to perform at the very highest level. Toro Rosso is targeting fifth in the constructors' championship and in order to do so it will need Verstappen and his fellow rookie team-mate Carlos Sainz to consistently finish in the points.

"Of course it's a high goal, but if you looked at the [Toro Rosso] results of last year they had really good qualifyings and they were challenging. If we can get the reliability a bit better this year, we have some improvements in the car and in the engine then I think we can do that.

"You also have to take advantage, especially at the beginning of the season when everybody wants to score points. Sometimes they can make mistakes and we have to take advantage of it."

Right from the first race in Australia the pressure will be on and Verstappen will be expected to perform. It sounds like an awful lot for a young man to deal with, but as he says, Max Verstappen has never had it any other way.

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Laurence Edmondson is deputy editor of ESPNF1

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