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This Sunday Max Verstappen won the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix and achieved his sixth victory in nine contested dates. In this way, the three-time world champion established himself at the forefront of the championship. The 26-year-old Dutchman who broke records for precocity, including the youngest winner, is on his way to breaking more records, but he was not included in a list of the five best drivers in the history of the Máxima. Four of them are from the modern version of the category and only one from its early years.
Aware of the media impact it has, when asked about his top five he responded: “Do you know what happens? No matter what you say, people are going to comment and they are not going to agree.” Then, in an interview with DAZN, he released: “I’m going to go with Michael Schumacher, probably Ayrton Senna, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Juan Manuel Fangio.”
That was his order and the place he gave to the five-time Argentine world champion, the only one to win with four different brands (Alfa Romeo, Mercedes, Ferrari and Maserati) and with an effectiveness percentage of 47.05 percent, caught attention. due to his 24 wins in 51 Grand Prix. It should be noted that today it would be impossible for someone to reach that metric due to the number of races there are in a year and in 2024 there will be 24 events. In the fifties they did not exceed ten per season.
He was right that his statement was going to cause controversy, since for example he left out the three-time champions Jackie Stewart and Niki Lauda, or the four-time champion, Alain Prost. Schumacher and Hamilton are the top winners with seven crowns. Senna added three titles and Alonso, two.
He also did not include his father-in-law, Nelson Piquet, three-time world champion. Even Max made a confession about family gatherings: “We don’t really talk about motorsports. He’s talked about it more than enough in his life. At a certain point, you don’t feel it anymore and you don’t talk about it anymore. I realize there’s more in the life”. Since the end of 2020, Max has been in a relationship with the model and influencer, Kelly Piquet.
While he was also asked about an era of F1 to which he would like to return and Verstappen confessed: “I am happy with what I have now, but I think I would choose the beginning of the 2000s.” He later justified: ” Simply because of the sound of the engine.” It is worth remembering that from a very young age Max accompanied his father, Jos, former F1, to races, so he knows perfectly well the resonance of the V10 engines to which he alludes.
In fact, being almost a baby, he already had contact with Schumacher, who had Jos as a teammate, but that was in 1994, when Max had not yet come into the world. The viral video in which Max greets the Kaiser is from the early 2000s.
In the aforementioned interview, Verstappen highlighted: “I think that most of us drivers start because we love the sport and that is still the case. We want to win, so in the end winning is more important than money. Money is secondary, but also in the life it is important to be rewarded for what you do.
F1 will race again on June 23 with the Spanish Grand Prix in what will be the return to the European journey that will end with the break from July 29 to August 22. There are still 14 events left in what will be the longest season in the 74-year history of the Máxima.
