Coming into 2023, it’s no secret how difficult Max Verstappen’s early days were. The Dutchman had an extremely hard childhood and that can be clearly seen through his absolutely lethal mindset in Formula 1 right now. People who saw the Red Bull driver when he was a child can recall the competitiveness Verstappen had. One such person was Giedo van der Garde, who recently shared his experience of watching the two-time world champion grow up, as per Sky Sports F1.
Van der Garde has close ties with the Red Bull driver’s family and even raced under Max’s father. He raced for Jos Verstappen racing and therefore has a strong relationship with them. As he was closely connected, he saw Verstappen grow up, to become the star F1 driver that he is today.
I feel extremely proud to win my home race again, in front of all of you, this makes this day and the victory even more special. 🙌
Thank you so much to everyone for coming to the track and sticking around through the bad weather to celebrate this win with us 🇳🇱👏#DutchGP pic.twitter.com/uYGFmLmMrF
— Max Verstappen (@Max33Verstappen) August 27, 2023
Van der Garde, the Dutch racing driver has spent a lot of time with the family with Belgium in the past. This helped him see the two-time world champion grow from an ambitious “angry” little man to an almost three-time world champion.
Van der Garde on Max Verstappen’s growing up and his strength
During a recent podcast with Sky Sports, F1 experts such as Tom Bellingham, Matt Baker, and Giedo van der Garde came together to talk about Verstappen and his recent success.
Talking about how he saw the defending champion grow up, van der Garde said that he lived with the Verstappen family in Belgium for quite some time. During their time together, he used to sleep in the Red Bull driver’s bed and Verstappen used to sleep with his father.
As Verstappen and van der Garde used to live under the same roof, they used to play games on the PlayStation together. Whenever Verstappen lost to him, he would rage by throwing his controller. This showed how competitive he was from a young age.
Van der Garde also knew there was something special in the ‘kid’ that he saw growing up. The 25-year-old showed incredible composure in the recently concluded Dutch Grand Prix despite all the chaos around him on the track. This was something the Dutch racer praised wholeheartedly. He feels that Verstappen’s ability to remain so calm is a huge strength of his.
Max Verstappen and rise to the top in F1
The way Max Verstappen grew up, showed the level of competitiveness the young kid had. Admittedly, F1 expert Bellingham also had ample praise for the Red Bull star driver.
Bellingham shared how he was surprised to see the son of Jos Verstappen making it to Formula 3 and therefore he wanted to follow the Dutchman’s racing journey from the beginning.
However, he was even more shocked to see that Max Verstappen was so good that he skipped F2 to directly join F1. Today, he is a two-time champion, well on his way to clinching his third world title.
