How a 16-Year-Old Max Verstappen Showed Red Bull He Was at Michael Schumacher’s Level

Today, Max Verstappen is the most in-form driver in F1, having won three consecutive world championships, starting in 2021. However, the first time he showed signs that he could achieve big things came when he was just 16 years old, and competing in his first single-seater championship. One race in particular, held at the Norisring, showed Red Bull that Verstappen was a lot like Michael Schumacher.

Verstappen’s junior career before F1 was quite short because he made his debut at the age of 17. That doesn’t mean that he didn’t shine at the levels before F1. On the contrary, he took the grid by storm in the 2014 F3 European championship by finishing P3 despite having little experience driving Formula cars in the past.

Former AlphaTauri (Toro Rosso) boss Franz Tost was the one who made the comparison between Verstappen and Schumacher after watching the former driver at Norisring. He said to Formule1 (as reported by Race Fans),

“Wet track, it was raining. As you know, a lap at the Norisring is short: it takes less than a minute. Still Max was one or two seconds faster there than the rest. It was incredible, he just flew off in the rain. Very impressive.

The race immediately reminded Tost of Schumacher. Tost saw the seven-time champion race at the Salzburgring, a similar track, in the 1980s.

That race too, took place under difficult conditions, but in Tost’s words, Schumacher “wiped the floor” just like Verstappen did in 2014. In many ways, that was the race that paved Verstappen’s entry into F1 just a year later.

How a 16-year-old Max Verstappen convinced Red Bull of his talent?

Franz Tost went on to say that he immediately contacted Dr. Helmut Marko after he saw Max Verstappen on the race track for the first time. Usually, Red Bull take a driver under their wing to develop them before offering them a seat in F1. But Tost told Marko straight up that he wanted the Dutchman at Toro Rosso as his driver from 2015 onwards.

To put into perspective how good a 16-year-old Verstappen was in Norisring that afternoon, his lap times can be looked at. As soon as he took the lead of the race that was taking place under treacherously wet conditions, he built an 8+ seconds gap in just 8 laps. For a driver to do it in F3, that to without prior experience, was just stunning.

Verstappen ended up signing for Toro Rosso in 2015 and impressed everyone in his rookie season. Midway into the 2016 campaign, Red Bull took him into their main team and he won his very first race with them in Spain.

Hence, it’s safe to say that Tost has a good eye for talent because Max Verstappen’s brilliance is now on display week in and week out when he drivers in F1. The way he is going, he may break all of Schumacher’s records himself before calling it quits.