“I wanted Max in our car”- When Max Verstappen made Franz Tost fall in love at first sight

“I wanted Max in our car”- Franz Tost on how Max Verstappen impressed him in an F3 race and made him convince management to promote him.

Max Verstappen in 2014 became the youngest driver to debut in Formula 1 at the age of 17, the Dutch driver lived up to the hype and is expected to rule the sport once Lewis Hamilton leaves the scene.

Before being the doyen at Red Bull, he had a brief stint at Toro Rosso (now Alpha Tauri), and Franz Tost revealed how he wanted him in his car after that impressive F3 performance.

“I still remember it well,” he told Dutch magazine Formule 1. “Wet track, it was raining. As you know, a lap on the Norisring is short: it takes less than a minute. Still, Max was one or two seconds faster than the rest.

“Helmut [Marko] and I are of course always in contact about these kinds of matters, we discuss extensively the performance of young drivers. It was clear to me then that I wanted Max in our car, as a driver and not as a test driver.”

“Too young? Not for Max Verstappen”- Franz Tost

When Verstappen joined Toro Rosso, many experts as per Tost claimed that he was too young to make his debut at this tender age, while the nominal age to debut in the highest format is usually 21-23.

“Many ‘experts’ said it was way too soon. To which I said: but not for Max Verstappen,” the AlphaTauri team principal added. “Because he is not a passenger in the car, as you often see with newcomers, but he drives the car.

“How he had the car under control, he controlled it completely… extraordinary,” he concluded. Verstappen, not having the experience of F2, made mistakes in his initial days, but soon developed to be a star of today, while Red Bull always believed that he will be their future.

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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