Why Max Verstappen Will Be the Most Exciting Rookie on the 2015 Formula 1 Grid
When was the last time a Formula One rookie had a truly exciting and memorable debut season?
Fans of a certain age will remember the first time the greats took to the wheel. In the past 30 or so years, we have witnessed the emergence of Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen, Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel.
All, to one degree or another, had debut seasons that marked them out as something special. They were the drivers we could point to after just one year and confidently call them "future world champions."
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We haven't had one for a while—but this might be about to change.
Three rookies will contest the 2015 Formula One season. The oldest and most experienced of the trio is Felipe Nasr, who arrives at Sauber to partner Marcus Ericsson packing a good but not spectacular record in the lower formulae.
After winning the Formula BMW Europe championship in 2009, Nasr progressed to British Formula Three and won the series title in 2011. GP2 was next, and in three seasons there, he finished 10th, fourth and third in the championship.
With this resume, 22-year-old Nasr is unlikely to have received a shot at F1 on talent alone. His substantial backing from Banco do Brasil, reported by the Guardian to be in the region of £10-£12 million per season, played a significant part in securing him the drive.
Nasr is not a pure pay driver—he definitely has talent, and if he can produce his best form this year, it's likely he'll mature into a solid, mid-grid driver.
But there has been nothing in his career to date to suggest he's going to be exceptional. Fans hoping for the next super rookie should probably look elsewhere.
Maybe Carlos Sainz Jr. will fit the bill?
The 20-year-old is the son of rally legend Carlos Sainz, though he'd prefer to be known as his own man. He joins Toro Rosso after five years in the Red Bull Junior Team.
His first major racing title came in 2011, when he won the Formula Renault 2.0 Northern European Cup championship, beating then-team-mate Daniil Kvyat into second. Sainz also got the better of his rival in Formula BMW in 2010 and in 2011's Eurocup FR2.0
But an average season of F3 in 2012 was followed by an even more disappointing GP3 campaign in 2013. Teamed again with Kvyat, Sainz was soundly beaten.
Champion Kvyat was promoted to Toro Rosso for 2014, while winless Sainz ended the year in 10th.
His future didn't look especially bright at that stage, but the Spaniard pushed himself back into Red Bull's reckoning with a brilliant season in FR3.5, winning seven races on his way to the title.
Despite this success, Red Bull took a long time to decide he would get a promotion to F1. His path may well have been eased by Toro Rosso's association with his personal sponsor CEPSA, if a story in Marca (h/t motorsport.com) is to be believed.
Sainz is certainly a good driver, but like Nasr, he doesn't appear to have the makings of a future great. Both could go on to have multi-year careers, but neither looks to have genuine star quality.
The youngest F1 rookie of 2015—indeed, the youngest F1 rookie of all time—is another matter entirely.
Max Verstappen is the son of Jos Verstappen, the popular Dutchman who raced in 107 grands prix between 1994 and 2003. Guided by his father, the younger Verstappen's karting career was quite simply phenomenal.
Per Driver DB, he won just about everything he entered. His time in karts ended in 2013, a year in which he won the prestigious KZ World and European championships—along with four other titles.
Away from karting, he has done very little. His only single-seater highlight is third in the 2014 European F3 championship, but this is down to a lack of time not talent. Verstappen was just 16 years old and halfway through his first season in single-seaters when the announcement was made that he would drive for Toro Rosso in 2015.
To say this raised eyebrows would be an understatement. When he sits on the grid for his first race, Verstappen will be just 17 years and 166 days old—the youngest driver to start a grand prix by almost two years.
The Belgium-born Dutchman has leapfrogged three older, more experienced and generally well-regarded Red Bull Junior Team members—Sainz Jr., Alex Lynn and Pierre Gasly—to take the seat.
But this, together with the fact Red Bull didn't send him to a higher series such as GP2 before F1, tells us something significant. They clearly believe they have found something very special indeed.
His karting career and the way in which he instantly adapted to the intensely competitive world of the European F3 suggests they may be right—and they're not afraid to let us know.
Speaking to the official F1 website in September, Helmut Marko, the man in charge of the Red Bull Junior Team, described him as an "exceptional talent that comes along only once in decades." When asked who Verstappen could be compared to, he didn't hold back:
"Most likely Ayrton Senna. And in such a case you must not look at his age. He has been talking with people who are experts when it comes to the development of youngsters and they all say that [in terms of] his mind he is more like 22 than 16.
And regarding his skills behind the steering wheel, he has been racing since he was four years old—professionally. So we expect him to be competitive from the first race. We are not playing the lottery—we know what we are doing. And success proves us right.
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Verstappen has also received glowing praise from his Toro Rosso race engineer for 2015, Xevi Pujolar, who spoke to GP Update earlier in February. He has worked with drivers including Mark Webber and Juan Pablo Montoya but already describes Verstappen as the best he has ever seen.
He also spoke of the young man's maturity and professionalism—something immediately evident from his first appearance in the paddock and every time he faces the media. Pujolar said:
"Some guys might be 10 or 15 years in motorsports, or even in Formula One, and their level of professionalism will never be as good as Max's is at the moment.
One thing that's very impressive with him is how much discipline he has and how focused he is. A lot of young drivers are also thinking about other things like going out. With Max it's only about racing.
He wants to be the best and he works 100 percent for that. He wants the people around him to work just as hard. He's pushing the engine guys, he's pushing me and he's pushing the team.
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Those within Red Bull are not the only ones to see something unique in Verstappen—the competition does, too.
Trevor Carlin, founder of the successful lower-formulae Carlin team that has run drivers including Sebastian Vettel, Robert Kubica and Daniel Ricciardo, also speaks very highly of the youngster who raced against his squad in F3.
He told Autosport's Ben Anderson:
"The thing that stands out about Verstappen is that all the tracks aren't known to him, all the conditions aren't known to him, all the circumstances aren't known to him, but he doesn't make mistakes. He can cope already. That's the amazing thing.
He's been bred to be a Formula One driver. He may be 16, but he's got probably 12 or 13 years of racing experience at top level. He's a once-in-a-generation talent.
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Others also speak highly of Verstappen. Motor Sport magazine's Mark Hughes reports that many in the karting world, where he spent most of his career to date, believe him to be the best talent the sport has seen for several decades.
And Autosport's lower-formulae expert, Marcus Simmons, calls Verstappen "the most exciting driver to come along in a generation."
No one is saying these things about Nasr or Sainz Jr. Nor did they speak so highly of Kvyat or Kevin Magnussen when they made their debuts last year, or Valtteri Bottas in 2013, or Ricciardo in 2011.
Even drivers considered among the best of the present day, such as Vettel and Lewis Hamilton, didn't quite reach Verstappen-like levels of hype prior to their debuts.
All the praise that has been heaped upon his young shoulders won't mean a thing to Verstappen when the lights go out in Australia.
But the words of so many experts—along with his mind-blowing karting career, magnificent displays in F3 and assured Friday practice showings in F1 at the end of last season—give us fans great cause for optimism.
There are no guarantees in this sport, but we could be set to witness the arrival of Formula One's next true great. While Nasr and Sainz Jr. have taken their places on the grid to barely a whisper, Verstappen has arrived with a roar.
Drivers who arrive amid sky-high expectations tend to do so for a reason.
They don't always succeed, but Verstappen looks the real deal. He'll be the rookie to watch when the season kicks off in March.
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