Red Bull Motorsports
F1
Ricciardo’s perspective: Witnessing Verstappen’s rise to 200 races
Max Verstappen’s road to 200 F1 starts has been record-setting, history-writing and calendar-shaping. Here, Daniel Ricciardo looks at the key moments in Max’s journey – and what might come next.
Max Verstappen celebrates his milestone 200th Formula One race at home in the Dutch Grand Prix in late August; that there even was a Dutch Grand Prix after Zandvoort had been absent from the F1 calendar for 36 years from the mid-1980s to 2021 is testament to what Oracle Red Bull Racing’s three-time world champion has achieved in that double-century of races, and it’s a story with many more chapters to come.
Present on the grid as a team-mate, rival, foe and friend for all but 14 of those 200 starts is Daniel Ricciardo, the Australian driver who shared a garage with Verstappen for three years, the same apartment block as neighbours in Monaco for many more, and a friendship that came from an initial wariness and an understandable rivalry to one that has bloomed as both drivers, separated in age by eight years, have matured in both life and their careers.
In Ricciardo’s own words, these the moments he remembers most on Verstappen’s ride with Red Bull to 200, and how he’s grown from a teenage talent into one of the sport’s most prolific performers.
Max's 200th falls at Zandvoort, back on the calendar thanks to his success
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
01
“The it-factor was evident straight away”
Ninety minutes. That’s all Daniel Ricciardo needed to get a read on Max Verstappen.
There was just… something about a kid who had gone from being the youngest driver to start a Formula One race in 2015 at the age of 17 to Ricciardo’s team-mate at Red Bull Racing on a sunny Barcelona morning for opening practice of the Spanish Grand Prix a year later.
The Australian, then five years into his F1 career, noticed it straight away.
“He jumped in the Red Bull car for the first time for practice and was on it,” Ricciardo remembers of Verstappen’s first run as his team-mate, five rounds into a season where Verstappen was elevated into Red Bull’s A-team from Toro Rosso after the previous race in Russia.
“I saw more than just speed … it was more that he was so unfazed by everything. With so many sports, so many athletes, that’s the bigger thing – who can do it once the eyes are on them, when the pressure is on and the lights are bright. That, for me … his very first time where all eyes were on him, he just didn’t seem bothered by any of it. You couldn’t not notice it. There was that ‘it’ factor that was very evident straight away.”
That was Verstappen’s 24th F1 race and, memorably, his first victory two days after Ricciardo’s initial assessment proved spot-on. Fast-forward eight years and Verstappen, now simultaneously an elder statesman of the sport while still only 26 years old, has now won multiple world championships, more races than only two other drivers in F1 history and has been the sport’s benchmark for a half-decade, and counting.
One race, one win: success on debut for Red Bull Racing in Barcelona, 2016
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
I saw more than just speed … it was more that he was so unfazed by everything
02
“I wasn’t ready at 17, but Max clearly was”
Ricciardo observed the 2015 iteration of Verstappen with curiosity from afar, spent three seasons as his team-mate with several successes and occasional flashpoints, and competed against him as a rival as his F1 journey took him to Renault, then McLaren, then back inside the Red Bull family with Visa CashApp RB for the past two seasons.
He, like Verstappen, is one of just 23 drivers in F1’s 75-year history to surpass 200 Grand Prix starts, a number more easily attained with today’s bloated calendar lengths, but a significant achievement nonetheless.
What’s more telling, from Ricciardo’s own experience, was that Verstappen was ready for F1 at just 17. At the same age, Ricciardo was finishing high school in his native Western Australia and competing in Formula BMW Asia, not making it to F1 until he was a week past his 22nd birthday in 2011. Even then, he wasn’t sure he was ready.
Watch Ricciardo take on a young Verstappen in this caravan race with an F1 twist:
2 min
Watch a caravan race with an F1 twist
See Red Bull Racing’s Ricciardo and Verstappen race their caravans around Austria’s F1 track.
“At 22, I felt young – mentally up for the challenge but still so young – so for Max at 17, that was a big ask,” Ricciardo says.
“The step to F1 was quite big then – the cars for one, but just everything about F1, the beast that it is. It’s hard to be prepared for the whole circus, the intensity of a race weekend. Getting used to the cars, the feedback, the engineering, strategy, media, fan engagements – it’s tough, because there’s so much involved. The pace of a weekend and the demands, it’s just so much more draining than anything you’ve ever done. I definitely wasn’t ready at 17, but Max clearly was.”
Deeper into their time as team-mates, Ricciardo sensed Verstappen was in that career sweet spot of youthful exuberance combined with experience and know-how to unlock his nascent greatness. Ricciardo recognised it because he’d already lived it, the time after he took his first three F1 victories in 2014.
Max was just 17 years and 166 days old when he debuted in Melbourne
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
At 22, I felt young – mentally up for the challenge but still so young – so for Max at 17, that was a big ask
“In 2014, I was like the 2016 version of Max where you just jump in the car, you’re in a top team for the first time, and you’re running on instinct, excitement, a bit of ‘f**k it, let’s see what happens’,” Ricciardo laughs.
“That’s very powerful. But then the 2016 version of me – so this is probably the 2018 version of Max – you’re still young and hungry enough to not care so much, but then you have those extra couple of years of experience, and technically you’re more in-tune with the car, the team and the decisions they’re making.
“On the days where you can’t just rely on pure talent, you have a little bit more support behind that. The 2016 season was when I felt that, and that’s what I feel Max was starting to come into by 2018.”
12 min
World’s fastest filming drone chases Max Verstappen
Fast laps like you've never seen before – take flight with a drone that keeps up with F1 car speeds of 300kph+.
03
“He has that unconditional confidence and belief”
By then, Ricciardo – who beat Verstappen in the world championship in their first two years together in 2016-17 – began to understand how formidable he was about to become.
“I felt like a lot of time then he operated on just pure talent and speed, so there was the race craft and a lack of maturity at that age dealing with certain situations where he could get a little bit flustered or erratic or rattled … that was something I had on him with more experience and maturity,” Ricciardo remembers.
“But I knew that was going to come in time for him, you could see it developing. He was just as fast, if not getting faster, but the mistakes were becoming less, and his engineering … he was more in-tune with the car and his feedback to the team. He was becoming more complete … more well-rounded, a little bit different and a bit special.”
He’s operating on such a level of calmness, composure, confidence – that’s the most impressive thing now
Come 2021, when Verstappen won his first world title with a pass for the lead on the final lap of the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi, that special CV finally had some silverware attached to it. It was Verstappen’s 20th victory in his 141st start; the next 20 arrived in just 29, victory number 40 coming in Spain 2023, the same Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya track where he’d won for the first time seven years previously.
Win number 60 came in Canada in 2024, and with time on his side, there’s no telling where his statistics may end up before he hangs up his helmet for good.
Dig deeper into the mind of Max
Ricciardo knows how hard it is to win in F1, and can appreciate the “very, very big purple patch” Verstappen has been in.
“Where he’s better now is that he’s walked the walk many times, so he has that unconditional confidence and belief that he can pull something off, maybe even when he’s not expected to,” Ricciardo muses.
“He’s also in a zone because of the last few years and how locked-in he is, it’s just like clockwork. He’s operating on such a level of calmness, composure, confidence – that’s the most impressive thing now, that all those little mistakes he used to make have been ironed out. It’s a driving thing, but ultimately it’s a mental thing where he’s just so under control and unfazed.”
04
“He could go down maybe as the greatest of all time”
World title number three was sealed under lights in Doha in 2023
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
As both drivers have grown as sports stars and adults, Ricciardo says their relationship has changed significantly; for him, that advancement of years comes with extra perspective.
“I think back to those days as team-mates … he came in with a lot of hype and doing some great things but I was trying to make my mark too,” he says.
“We were both fighting for our spot at the top, so naturally there is some competitiveness and some tension, a rivalry. So when we weren’t directly competing against each other as team-mates after 2018, that removed a little bit of the defensive shield between us.
It’s just a respect for what he’s done – and what he’s still doing
“On top of that, you just mature – I did, he did. When you’re young, your mindset is to not have much respect for your opponents. Everyone is the enemy, it’s dog eat dog. As you get older, you just naturally respect your rivals more. There’s a general level of maturity.
“Surviving in the sport as long as we have, there’s a respect. You spend more time around each other and see the human side behind the competitiveness.
“I reckon I’ve probably been able to rub off on some people in a positive way, that little bit more joking way, more carefree. Whether that’s rubbed off a little bit on Max … I’m not going to take full credit, maybe just a bit of it! But, jokes aside, I’ve got no problems saying he could go down maybe as the greatest of all time.
“There’s no ego in the way of that for me, it’s just a respect for what he’s done – and what he’s still doing.”
