Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz, who were teammates at Toro Rosso (now Racing Bulls) in 2015, developed quite a rivalry at the time. Driving for Red Bull’s sister team, the two, who were young and raring to prove themselves, knew that the one who performed better would be promoted.
In a recent interview with Auto Motor und Sport, Sainz admitted that the tensions between him and Verstappen arose because of what was at stake. “At Toro Rosso, they put you in a team and say: ‘Fight each other, then we’ll see who’s the best and who gets promoted to Red Bull’. That’s the reason why Toro Rosso exists,” the Spaniard explained.
When they were at Toro Rosso, Verstappen was 16, while Sainz was 19 years old. Sainz added that if he had signed for Red Bull this season, he “would get on well” with Verstappen as they are much more mature now.
Now that the two former teammates have a better relationship, their girlfriends perhaps get along well too. At least that’s what we could gather when Verstappen’s girlfriend, Kelly Piquet, and Sainz’s partner, Rebecca Donaldson, posed together for the cameras during the ATP Masters 1000 in Monte Carlo.
They were part of a shoot with a few other models to promote the clothing brand, Replay. Donaldson posted a few images from it on her Instagram account. They also sat together to enjoy a game with a mutual friend in between, alongside Norwegian model Frida Aasen, a mutual friend.
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Away from the track, Donaldson is busy with her modeling assignments. She broke into the industry in 2011 after appearing on the UK-based reality TV show, Top Model UK.
Since then, Donaldson has been featured on the cover of some of the most prestigious publications, including Elle Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, and Vogue. Apart from a successful career in modeling, the 29-year-old has also founded an activewear company called Muse Activewear.
Piquet, meanwhile, is in the latter stages of her pregnancy. With several reports claiming that she is due in the next couple of months, she has been holding several baby showers to celebrate it.
Piquet accidentally reveals the gender of her baby
The first celebration, with several of her friends, happened a few weeks ago in Miami.
She had another baby shower on Verstappen’s $12.3 million yacht. Piquet received congratulatory messages and gifts from her friends who attended the function.
The Brazilian model accidentally posted one such message on her Instagram account, promptly deleting it later. One of Piquet’s friends had written to her: “I’m so excited to have another girl joining our girl gang.”
The now-deleted post has confirmed, albeit unofficially, that she and Verstappen are having a girl.
With Piquet reportedly due soon, the question that arises is whether Verstappen will attend his child’s birth. Since April is a busy month, with a triple header, Red Bull will surely want him to race.
That said, Verstappen has an idea of how he can skip his race duties. Having collected eight penalty points to his name, he is just four away from receiving a race ban. The Dutchman had joked last year that maybe he would deliberately get those remaining points so he could be serving a ban “when the baby is born.”
