Max Verstappen the youngest driver ever to join Formula 1, has gone and done it again. Max Verstappen is your 2024 Formula 1 World Champion.
How Max Verstappen started out in racing
Max Verstappen, born 30 September 1997, started out karting very young at the age of four, and by the age of seven he was competing in the karting championships. He won karting championships continuously from 2005 till 2009. In 2010, CRG signed him to race in international karting, where he managed to place second in KF3 World Cup, and won the WSK World Series.
Breaking records upon records
2013 marked a record-breaking season for Max Verstappen.
He won three CIK-FIA championships in a single season; two European Championships; and a World Championship.
In the same year, Verstappen tested a Formula car and went faster than the drivers already driving Formula cars.
Aged 16, Verstappen raced in European FIA Formula 3 Championship and won 6 consecutive races in the series, and a record 10 victories, which placed him third overall in the standings.
First F1 race for the 4-time Champ
Max Verstappen became the youngest ever driver to take part in a F1 race, drove for Toro Rosso at the 2015 Australian Grand Prix. He also broke the record of being the youngest driver to score points as he scored points in the Malaysian Grand Prix in 2015, where he finished 7th.
Driving for Red Bull
Red Bull announced on 5 May 2016 that Max Verstappen will replace Daniil Kvyat from the Spanish Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen finished 1st in that Spanish Grand Prix and took the record of the youngest ever driver to win a Grand Prix.
Since then, Verstappen continued to rise in the Championship as the years passed.
In 2019, finally Max took his first Pole Position of his career at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The Dutchman finished both the 2019 and 2020 seasons in 3rd place.
Abu Dhabi, the controversial win in 2021 and knives out!
Max Verstappen won his 1st World Championship in 2021. This victory came after a very controversial race win at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
2021 marked a change in F1 history.
Lewis Hamilton was after many years, in a position to lose his 8th world Title.
Max Verstappen the young Dutch driver, driving for an Energy Drink Company known for upsetting World Champions stride in the past, was gearing up for a win.
Both the drivers fought brutally hard throughout the season.
Max Verstappen suffered a 51-G impact due to a collision with Hamilton at the British Grand Prix 2021.
Suffering from blurry vision and more visibility problems due to that crash, Max Verstappen still ended up winning the 2021 Championship.
At the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the Race Director had ordered the lapped cars to unlap themselves during the Yellow Flag.
A very controversial command passed by Michael Masi, allowed the lapped cars to overtake, putting Max Verstappen right behind Lewis Hamilton with fresh soft tires after a pitstop. This allowed ‘Mad Max’ to overtake Lewis Hamilton in the last lap of the race to take the victory of the Grand Prix and the Championship.
Consecutive Championship wins
Max Verstappen, after winning in 2021, continued to dominate in 2022 and 2023. 2023 was an exceptional season as Red Bull was on the podium 21 times out of 22. Max Verstappen won the 2023 Championship with a staggering lead of 290 points.
Certainly not a cakewalk: Winning the Championship in 2024
2024 season of Formula 1 started out much like last year, with Red Bull in the lead with Max Verstappen. But things went downhill fast for Verstappen and for Red Bull.
Since the Miami Grand Prix, McLaren bought new upgrades to their car and gained a lot of race pace. These upgrade packages rocketed McLaren from only being a slight challenge to the midfielders to suddenly being ahead of the entire field.
Lando Norris made a statement at the Dutch Grand Prix by winning ahead of Max Verstappen by a margin of 22.8 seconds. This was made possible by upgrades made to the MCL38.
But Max Verstappen, in contention for his 4th World Title was not one to back down. Max Verstappen had gained such a lead till the Spanish Grand Prix that even with the lightspeed pace of the MCL38, Lando Norris was never able to bring the gap down below 47.
Las Vegas Grand Prix sealed the fate of the 2024 World Championship
Max Verstappen knew as he arrived at the Las Vegas Street Circuit that all he had to do was finish ahead of Lando Norris in the race to win the F1 2024 World Championship.
Still the Dutchman tried his best to qualify high, although only managed a 5th place qualifying.
Since the race started, it was clear that Max was not taking any unnecessary risk, nor was he racing to win the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Max was racing to win the Championship last Sunday.
Max made a few overtakes on Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz, but when it came time to fight for the win of the race, Verstappen just let Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc pass him by easily at Turn 14.
Immediately as the Ferrari’s passed him, Gianpiero Lambiase told Max to remember what his race was.
Even David Croft, a man who has been critical of the Champ earlier on multiple occasions remarked that Max knew what his goal was on Sunday and that was only to win.
F1 2024 World Champion
Max Verstappen started this season with only one goal on mind. To win the F1 2024 World Champion and become a 4-time World Champion, which he he eventually did.
In so doing, he has joined an illustrious league of greats comprising Alain Prost, Sebastian Vettel, Jaun Manuel Fangio, Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton. Two of these drivers are those with whom Max has had the pleasure and on occasions, skirmishes and pains seen on the grid. Ultimately, however, even they’ve recognised the relentlessness of a man who can’t be forgotten.
Ditto for his craft.
Source– F1 Chronicle (Mark Thompson/ Getty)
Ultimately though, as it is said, a champion always drives like one, even when he doesn’t have the fastest car on the track to make mayhem. And Max Verstappen displayed a champion’s drive this season.
Despite having a car that never held itself well in the corners and as seen most recently, came under attack on the straights, it can’t be called that Max massacred rivals in 2024 with breakneck speed.
To compound his troubles, some bad strategy calls by the team, a teammate who did not provide any backup whatsoever with the title fight itself coming perilously close to going McLaren’s way; Max hasn’t faced as many demons as he did in this intriguing, edge-on-the-seat second half of the season.
And yet he persisted, still managing to grab the Red ‘Bull’ by its horns and drag it across the finish line.
Sometimes a fourth feels like a win; for you’ve done enough P1’s earlier during the course- isn’t it?
True for Max Verstappen, a man who knows how to prevail under maximum pressure.
Max Emilian Verstappen is your 2024 Formula 1 World Champion. In his own words – “Simply Lovely”