Max Verstappen Isn’t Putting Further Pressure On Himself, Red Bull

Max Verstappen lives his life in the fast lane, literally.

The driver for Oracle Red Bull Racing spends the majority of his days behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car at upwards of 220 mph navigating chicanes and speeding through straightaways around the globe from Azerbaijan to Singapore and Miami.

While the 25-year-old Verstappen works his hardest to avoid slowing down on the track, two-time World Drivers’ Champion who has five victories through seven races in 2023, strives to remain present and grounded each and every day.

“For me, honestly, about these records or goals, I just try to enjoy the moment because I know that in Formula 1 these things can change very quickly from year to year,” Verstappen said. “I always say winning is great and we’re very focused every race that we get the best out of it, but it’s also very important to enjoy what you’re doing because time goes by so quickly in this sport as well that sometimes you might forget about it.”

While Verstappen credits his parents Jos Verstappen and Sophie Kumpen for that perspective and mentality—“We just live in the moment and try to make the best of that,” he says—fans and pundits alike can’t help but look toward the future.

Will Red Bull win every race this season? They’re 7-for-7 so far.

Will Verstappen surpass Lewis Hamilton’s record of 103 career victories? At 25 years old, his 40 career wins are sixth best all-time.

Will Red Bull supplant Mercedes as the next F1 dynasty? Red Bull is well on its way to winning its second straight Constructors’ Championship on the road to tying and potentially passing Mercedes’ eight straight.

Currently atop the Drivers’ standings with 170 points, and 53 points ahead of teammate Sergio “Checo” Perez, Verstappen has five wins and seven podiums from seven races this year, only losing to his teammate in Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan. With 287 points, Red Bull has a commanding 135-point lead over Mercedes in the Constructors’ heading into the Canadian Grand Prix on June 18 at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, Canada.

A victory in Canada would be Red Bull’s ninth consecutive win, matching their previous record set in 2013 and 2022, while becoming the third team in F1 history to win the first eight races of the season, joining McLaren (1988) and Mercedes (2019).

“It doesn’t really matter what people are saying from the outside,” Verstappen said. “You have to just focus on what you can control and that’s within the team and with the car, and that’s what we’re doing. Of course we had a really good start to the year and of course we’d really like to keep that going, but sometimes it can also be a bit out of your hands what is happening throughout the weekend. In Montreal at the moment it looks like it’s going to be a rainy weekend which in general always brings a bit more unknowns and some unpredictable things that may happen.

“It’s a very long season and it’s all about trying to maximize the result every single weekend.”

Verstappen has certainly done that of late by winning two straight Drivers’ Championships while guiding Red Bull to last year’s Constructors’. After winning eight straight titles from 2014-21, Hamilton and Mercedes are now in Red Bull’s rearview mirror, though they are slowly gaining ground after Hamilton and teammate George Russell finished fourth and fifth respectively in Monaco and second and third the following week in Barcelona.

But before anyone crowns Red Bull as champion again or as the new F1 dynasty, Verstappen said it’s important to focus on the present, with the next task being Montreal.

“Red Bull has done it already—they won four in a row (2010-13) before Mercedes, so they already showed they’re capable of doing these things, and of course we want to do it again and that’s what we’re doing at the moment,” he said. “We’ll find out how long it will last but we have a good group of people to keep it going and hopefully, of course, we all stay together and stick together for a while.

“At the moment it’s very important we just go race by race and make sure that we are working very well together.”

Team principal Christian Horner and Red Bull are trying to keep things as consistent as possible, especially with its drivers. Verstappen signed a five-year extension in May 2022 reportedly worth $55 million a year to keep him in a Red Bull car until 2028, while Perez, 33, signed a two-year extension later that month to keep him with the team until 2024 at least.

Earning $64 million in 2023 thanks to his salary and winnings coupled with endorsements, Verstappen is No. 22 on Forbes’ World’s Highest-Paid Athletes.

While he’s focused on the next race, Verstappen admitted he’s got a team around him analyzing and discussing investment and entrepreneurial opportunities.

“I have a lot of plans, but at the moment it’s just very difficult to execute them because you’re so busy with racing,” he said. “A lot of things that I’m looking at for the future are racing-related mainly, but outside of Formula 1, and probably just to have a bit more fun but also create maybe pathways for other young talent to come through, not necessarily to Formula 1 but any kind of racing really.”

Career longevity

Usually ahead of the pack on race day, Verstappen is toward the middle of the pack in terms of driver age at 25 years old. McLaren’s Oscar Piastri is the youngest on the grid this season at 22 years old, while Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso turns 42 on July 29.

Verstappen will be 31 at the end of his current contract, which runs through the 2028 season. What comes after that, only Verstappen knows, and even that decision might not come until it’s time to renegotiate.

Hamilton, the winningest driver in F1 history, is 38 years old, while Michael Schumacher (91 career wins) retired at 43 years old in 2012.

“Some people love racing because that’s the only thing they do, really,” Verstappen said. “For me, I love racing, I still do, but I also want to do other things and not only Formula 1 at some stage. Of course I know that this is the pinnacle and the highest you can achieve, but you also set a bit of a different perspective. Now that I’ve won two titles, if I wouldn’t have won them, you keep on trying—you keep trying to achieve something like that. Now that I’ve done so, it’s nice and it’s nice to win another one and another one, but basically it’s the same thing. It’s not something that will keep me here forever.

“It’s more about if I can motivate myself every single year to the fullest to be here because with the race calendar being so long, you’re away from family and friends a lot as well. I find that at what point what is more important: is it winning races and being away from them or is it actually being at home and spending time with those dearest and closest to you in a time in your life when you’re fully fit, very active and you can still do anything you want?

“Maybe if you look back at it and if you stayed in F1 until you’re 40 or whatever, it might be that you were like ‘Maybe I stayed too long and didn’t spend enough time with my close ones,’ so it’s still something that’s a big question mark for me and how long I will stay in the sport.”

U.S. popularity

Formula 1’s popularity in the world, and particularly the United States, has grown exponentially, thanks in part to Netflix’s Drive to Survive.

ESPN saw a record average of 1.2 million viewers per race across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC in 2022, a 28% rise over the previous mark set the year before. There were 49.2 million F1 fans in the U.S. in 2022—up from 44.9 million in 2019, according to Statista, while 53% of nearly 1,900 self-identified U.S. adult F1 fans credited Drive to Survive as the reason they started watching F1 races, per Morning Consult.

With the second Miami Grand Prix already run on May 7—unsurprisingly Verstappen and Perez went 1-2—and two more U.S. races on the 2023 calendar to come: the U.S. Grand Prix in Austin (October 22) and the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix (November 18), F1 is speeding along in the States.

According to Horner, 72% of U.S. F1 fans follow Red Bull, while Oracle Red Bull Racing has seen 69% growth on social media year-over-year in the U.S. alone.

Oracle Red Bull Racing became the first F1 team to launch its season in the U.S. in February. Red Bull is now a partner for each of the U.S.-based races, recently being announced as a presenting partner for the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

The team and sport’s growth in the U.S. hasn’t gone unnoticed to Verstappen.

“Honestly it’s been great,” he said. “My first (U.S.) race was in 2015 in Austin. When you look at it now, it’s crazy how much it has grown—of course having more Grand Prix in the U.S., which I think is a great thing.

“(Vegas) is going to be crazy. Everyone I speak to, they want to go to Vegas. … I’m curious to see how that weekend will pan out but I think it’s going to be really insane.”