Max
Verstappen

Max Verstappen was born on 30 September 1997 in Hasselt, Belgium, and grew up in Maaseik. He races on a Dutch licence, as his father Jos Verstappen, also a Formula One driver, did before him. He started karting at the age of four. In 2013, aged 15, he won two European championships and the KZ World Championship. In 2014 he contested the FIA European Formula 3 Championship with Van Amersfoort Racing and finished third overall.

He replaced Jean-Éric Vergne in first practice at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix. In 2015 he made his debut as a full-time driver with Toro Rosso at the Australian Grand Prix, aged 17 years and 166 days. No driver had started a World Championship race at such a young age before. He scored his first points with seventh place in Malaysia and ended the season twelfth in the standings. In 2016 he was promoted to Red Bull after four races. In his very first race for the team, the Spanish Grand Prix, he won at 18 years and 228 days, making him the youngest Grand Prix winner. He finished that season fifth in the championship.

He won further races in 2017 and 2018 and finished sixth and fourth in the standings. In 2019 and 2020 he took third place in the championship both times, with Honda power. In Hungary in 2019 he claimed his first pole position, the first for a Dutch driver.

In 2021 he became World Champion after passing Lewis Hamilton on the final lap of the last race in Abu Dhabi, the first champion from the Netherlands. He retained the title in 2022 and 2023. In 2023 he won 19 races and scored 575 points. A fourth consecutive title followed in 2024, in a car from a team that finished third in the Constructors' Championship. In 2025 he lost the title to Lando Norris by two points and finished runner-up, with eight wins that season. In 2026 he drives for Red Bull.

Away from Formula One he has raced in GT cars and in sim racing. In 2025 he won on his GT3 debut in the Nürburgring Endurance Series, sharing a Ferrari 296 GT3 of Emil Frey Racing with Chris Lulham. In 2022 he founded the team Verstappen.com Racing.

Source: Wikipedia, “Max Verstappen”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.