It won’t be an overstatement to say that Max Verstappen slammed down the doors of F1 at the age of 17. The Dutchman was a phenomenal talent since his karting days and turned a lot of heads when he got into open-wheel racing in 2014. Many drivers at his level envied his talent, as Verstappen was better than most of them. This perhaps “p*ssed” a lot of people, according to F1 presenter Will Buxton.
Speaking on The Red Flags podcast, Buxton narrated an anecdote about when he raced against Verstappen himself. When he was telling the hosts about this story, he mentioned how Verstappen was challenging and beating the likes of Lance Stroll, Nicholas Latifi, and Antonio Fuoco, who were the “cream of Formula 3” back in the day.
Buxton said, “Here comes this precocious little brat out of karts and he was quicker than all of them. He was doing things with the car and he was doing things to the corners, that none of them could replicate. And he p*ssed a lot of people off, because at least for some of them at that point of time, they saw the writing on the wall”.
2014 was the first year when Verstappen raced in open-wheel racing, driving in single-seater cars, coming out of karts. Before that, he had a stunning record in his karting days. And the three-time champion only took one season in the junior formulas to prove his mettle and earn a call-up to F1.
Now, Buxton mentioned how he was put in Ferrari’s driver academy program for NBC’s marketing strategy after they got the rights to F1. So, during the race weekend at the Florida Winter Series that the F1 presenter took part in, he was able to see Verstappen’s brilliance firsthand.
When Will Buxton raced against Max Verstappen
Will Buxton detailed how his one-off racing experience went by and got off to a terrible start. The F1 TV presenter was about 17 seconds off in the first practice session and had to work through the practice sessions to trim down the gap.
Eventually, he had some issues with his driveshaft and that led him to start at the back, after missing qualifying altogether. Regardless, the Briton did a decent job in the race to finish P10, while Max Verstappen finished P7.
This was the weekend Buxton described how the Dutch prodigy was showing his level of skills and was a cut above the rest. While Buxton agreed with the hosts that he finished just three places behind the Red Bull driver, the presenter joked that it also counted how the 26-year-old lapped him.
Still, the 43-year-old proudly stated the fact that he beat Nicholas Latifi, who has driven in F1 for three years with Williams. Buxton mentioned how it was a “wet race”, and he is quite happy about beating Latifi in changeable racing conditions “on merit”.
