Max and Niki: An Unexpected Encounter

Max Verstappen’s forthcoming appearance in the GT World Challenge Europe offers a natural starting point for a comparison with Niki Lauda: two very different champions, united by a passion for driving that extends well beyond Formula 1. On 17 October, Max will be at Portimão for the season finale, at the wheel of the number 3 Mercedes-AMG GT3 run by Verstappen Racing alongside Chris Lulham and Ben Barnicoat, taking advantage of the absence of Dani Juncadella and Jules Gounon, who are committed to the WEC at Barcelona. There are champions for whom Formula 1 is not a destination, but merely the peak of a broader passion. Max Verstappen belongs to this rare species: he loves to race, and whenever the calendar allows it, he seeks out circuits, categories, and challenges capable of returning something more instinctive to motorsport – traffic, night stints, driver changes, the unexpected. Above all, the freedom to push. He proved as much just a few weeks ago at Silverstone, when Red Bull placed a hundred kart rivals in front of him. Max started last, 101st, and in just 14 laps he had passed them all. A spectacular challenge, certainly, but also a return to origins that seems to describe him more faithfully than any interview: helmet on, four wheels, a victory to be claimed in the shortest time possible.

Verstappen is a true predator, always lurking to devour the rival ahead, with a talent and intelligence that are genuinely rare. His appetite is illustrated perfectly by those 100 karting rivals consumed one by one – a shark moving through a shoal of anchovies. A shark who, deep down, is "good-natured": driving, racing, crossing the line first – these are his authentic joy, whatever the machine. It is with curiosity, and a certain audacity, that we place him alongside Niki Lauda. The Austrian, three Formula 1 World Championships to his name – one fewer than Max – was cold, calculating, and so rigorous in his self-discipline that he could tame the psychological impact, as well as the physical, of the terrifying accident at the Nürburgring in 1976. Deep down, he was not good-natured. He wanted to win, and that desire imprisoned him in a relentless, methodical process of reasoning about what to do next – on the circuit and off it alike. For Lauda, reason always outweighed feeling.