Three-time World Champion Max Verstappen has expressed his intentions of retiring from the sport before he reaches his 40s on more than one occasion. Fernando Alonso, who is 42, however, thinks that Verstappen’s bold aim stems from his young age.
Verstappen doesn’t want to dedicate his entire life to the sport. Being an F1 driver takes away a lot of time from other things the 26-year-old wants to do. Not wanting to leave those things too late, Verstappen wants to retire from F1 while he is still young.
Verstappen also hates the commercial side of things. He feels that one day, they will outweigh his inherent love for F1.
Alonso, however, won’t be fooled by the Dutchman’s hopes. As quoted by The Times, he said,
“That’s what I was thinking when I was at Max’s age. I thought that it was my last season in 2018 and I said ‘bye bye’ to F1, thinking that it was enough for my career. I found, even when I decided to stop, I couldn’t,”
2016 F1 champion Nico Rosberg says Max Verstappen’s talk of early retirement “started in the year when he battled Hamilton”.#F1 #TeamLH pic.twitter.com/yQ35bPklcx
— mercedesamgf1motorsport (@MercedesF1Sport) June 12, 2023
Alonso claims that Verstappen is living in a ‘youthful folly’. The Spaniard too, found out that F1 is irresistible to a real racer after he called it quits following the culmination of the 2018 season.
This prompted him to make a comeback in 2021. Alonso signed for Alpine, and after two years with the Enstone-based outfit, he decided to jump ship and attach himself to the project at Aston Martin.
Max Verstappen has other priorities than Fernando Alonso
For Alonso, the ultimate aim upon returning to F1 was to grab his third World Title. It wasn’t just to compete at the pinnacle of motorsports for the sake of it. Verstappen, however, feels that he has already won everything he wanted to in the sport.
Now, he wants to try other things out. The Red Bull driver signaled a strong desire to dabble in the world of endurance racing and even rallying after hanging up his F1 helmet. He is also an avid sim racer, who has big plans to increase the sport’s popularity.
Max is busy setting up his own racing team!
Max is aiming for his own team in the GT3 class with https://t.co/VP6X7WRPrX Racing and hopes that it can be operational as early as 2025!
Max: “This project energizes me” pic.twitter.com/XlvIEBphp8
— Verstappen News (@verstappenews) August 2, 2023
In 2023, Verstappen revealed that he plans to establish his racing team. He is looking at options and is committed to having his own GT3 team by 2025.
