Max Verstappen is the aspiring world champion who would rather poke a screwdriver in his eye than attend a fashion show or inhabit the celebrity world.
Yes, he holidayed as a boy with Michael Schumacher and family, but if he took anything from the now stricken German, it was an impression of his work ethic rather than any associated sense of glamour or grandeur.
So sitting in Red Bull’s hospitality area at Silverstone, Verstappen is typically stripped of all fripperies. While Lewis Hamilton, who trails the Dutchman by 32 points ahead of Sunday’s British Grand Prix, walked into the paddock in snazzy catwalk clobber, for Verstappen it is simple jeans and Red Bull T-shirt and cap.
Max Verstappen is the man of the moment but he's not getting too carried away at the top
Fame? No, thanks.
Celebrity pals? No, thanks.
But although Verstappen doesn’t seek acclaim, it stalks him, especially in Holland, where he is a national hero and excites a huge army of travelling orange-clad fans with their trademark flares.
‘I wouldn’t hang out with celebs just for my profile,’ says the 23-year-old, whose father, Jos, was team-mate to Schumacher at Benetton in the 1990s. ‘With some well-known people you can strike a good connection and build up a friendship, but I would only meet those I think are friends.
‘I won’t call them mates when they are not mates, but just famous people. I want to spend time with family and real friends.
Verstappen is a national hero in Holland and excites a huge army of travelling orange-clad fans at every race with their trademark flares (pictured at the Austrian Grand Prix earlier in July)
‘I don’t spend too much time checking my Twitter or Instagram accounts to see how many followers I have (1.7million and 5.1m respectively, compared to Hamilton’s 6.4m and 23m) or worry about how many ‘likes’ my posts get. I am not interested in that. If I am in Holland, which is not often, I mostly stay in the house, again with family and friends.’
This sounds as if it may be a dig at Hamilton — the unapologetic Instagram devotee — so I ask how the pair of them get along.
‘Good, every-thing’s fine,’ says Verstappen. ‘There’s mutual respect. It’s just that we live different lives, so that limits how much we could meet away from the track anyway.
‘I don’t pay any attention to mind games. These things don’t bother me. I just focus on the track in the best way possible. Anything beyond that is not relevant to me.’
Unlike his championship rival, Lewis Hamilton, the Dutchman likes to keep a fairly low profile
Hamilton, pictured with celebrity friend Kayne West, is the unapologetic Instagram devotee
That mindset has taken the tough and increasingly rounded racer to victories in all of the last three races and five in the nine rounds of 23.
There is an unvarnished honesty to Verstappen. He knows his own mind and he sticks to it.
He is not complex, either. He can, though, be feisty in the midst and aftermath of competing or if riled.
Indeed, I asked him once what the explanation was for a
