MAD MAX

How Max Verstappen, the reigning two-time Fi champion, went from being a young boy with preternatural talent to becoming one of the most cold-blooded winners in racing history.

- DANIEL RILEY 

TOWARD THE END of Max Verstappen’s first season in Formula 1—a season in which he’d become, at 17, the youngest-ever driver to compete in racing’s top series—he returned home to the north of Belgium to take his road test for his driver’s license. Despite winning in every racing category from seven years old onward, he hadn’t been in much of a hurry to drive normal cars, but it was getting to be a little silly. There was a break in the 2015 schedule, and a tight window to take the test before jetting off to a stretch of races in Asia. The driving instructor was actually very strict,” he told me recently, before clarifying, which is very good—it should be like that! And I wasn’t nervous but just a bit like: I really need to pass this test. There was a bit of pressure on it.”

Verstappen ultimately passed but nearly received a fatal infraction when he failed to cede the road. Yeah, I didn’t give way twice,” he confessed, laughing knowingly.

Verstappen, from earliest racing days, has been known for an aggressiveness that lives— mesmerizingly or maddeningly, depending on where along the paddock one sits—right on the limit. Max’s best form of defense is attack,’ the Red Bull Racing team principal, Christian Horner, likes to say. Verstappen’s lead rival over the past few seasons, the seventime world champion Lewis Hamilton, has put it slightly differently: Max is kind of do-ordie. It’s like you're either crashing or you're not going by.’ In other words: Max is not giving way. Ever. I think he pushes it to the limit and probably beyond,’ Hamilton added.