News has broken that Max Verstappen, currently 16 years old, has been signed up to race for the Toro Rosso team for the 2015 Formula One season. That means that by the time he takes part in his first race, he’ll be the youngest driver in the sport’s history.
Now, it probably doesn’t hurt that Max’s dad is Dutch F1 legend Jos Verstappen, but it still takes a fair amount of work to even be considered for the elite echelons of F1 racing. And you can’t argue that Verstappen hasn’t put in the hard yards.
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At the age of seven, he took part in his first Kart race and has been climbing the ranks since then, with three wins in the Formula 3 championship this past season.
The thing is, Verstappen may be young, but not shockingly so. Think about it: with their good physical conditioning and fast reflexes, young drivers have a lot of the attributes you need to make it in F1. Why not get them experienced as quickly as possible while those attributes are still at their sharpest?
It’s a theory that’s (mostly) borne dividends over the years, as a look at the youngest drivers ever to get behind the wheel of an F1 car will tell you.
7. Sebastian Vettel
Age at debut: 19 years, 349 days
Debut race: 2007 United States Grand Prix
The results: Former teammate Mark Webber may not have been his biggest fan, but there can be doubting Sebastian Vettel’s accomplishments since he started racing seven years ago.
Alongside four world championships in a row, Vettel has — at various times — been the youngest driver to have taken part in an official practice session of a Grand Prix, to score championship points (until Daniil Kvyat in 2014), to lead a race, to secure pole position, and to win a race.
He’s been a little bit off the pace in 2014, but there’s every chance Vettel will end his career as one of Formula One’s all time greats.
6. Chris Amon and Daniil Kvyat
Age at debut: 19 years, 324 days
Debut races: 1963 Belgian Grand Prix and 2014 Australian Grand Prix respectively
Generations separate Amon and Kyvat’s F1 debuts. In that time, the sport has seen plenty of changes but the glitz, glamour and need for speed remain. Amon’s first race characterised the bad luck that was to plague his career (many regard him as the best driver never to win a World Championship). Teammate Maurice Trintignant took over his car for the first race of the season at Monaco, meaning that he had to wait until the Belgian Grand Prix to get his career started. Things did not improve there though. After nine laps, an oil fire ended his race. Now imagine battling that kind of hoodoo for a whole career.
In contrast, Kvyat’s had a pretty smooth start to his F1 career. After Daniel Ricciardo — who’s promotion to the full Red Bull team Kvyat owes his career to — was disqualified from the Australian Grand Prix, he was promoted to ninth, allowing him to break Vettel’s record as F1’s youngest points scorer.
The Russian has renewed his contract at Toro Rosso for next season, where he’ll be joined by none other than Max Verstappen, next to whom he’ll look positively ancient.
Age at debut: 19 years, 320 days
Debut race: 1998 Australian Grand Prix
About the only highlight of Tuero’s one and only season in F1 was that his debut race saw him claim the title of third (now fifth) youngest person ever to start a race in the format. Racing at the back of the pack in a Minardi, Tuero only made the top 10 once at the 1998 San Marino Grand Prix.
After crashing out of the 1998 Japanese Grand Prix (and inadvertently causing Michael Schumacher to withdraw), Tuero switched codes to the Argentinian TC2000 touring car racing series without any real success there either.
Age at debut: 19 years, 218 days
Debut race: 2001 Australian Grand Prix
Like Tuero, Alonso started racing for Minardi. Unlike Tuero, he went onto do much greater things. Two world championships, 97 podiums and 32 career wins are proof enough of that. After narrowly finishing runner up to Vettel two years in a row tough (in 2012, it went down to the final race of the season), is time running out for the Spaniard to add a third championship to his belt?
Image: Sporti via Wikipedia
Age at debut: 19 years, 208 days
Debut race: 1961 Italian Grand Prix
RodrÃguez promised big things in the few Formula One races he took part in. He’d already won national motorbike championships and took second place at the 1960 24 Hours of Le Mans. At 18 years and 133 days of age, he was the youngest ever to stand on the podium at Le Mans.
In 1961 he was signed to Ferrari after being given a guest spot and surprising everyone by qualifying second and becoming the youngest driver in history to start from front row. He probably would’ve finished on the podium too if a faulty fuel pump hadn’t forced him to retire.
After the team refused to take part in the non-championship Mexican Grand Prix, he made the fatal decision to switch to drive Rob Walker’s Lotus 24. In practice, he crashed at the Magdalena Mixhuca Circuit‘s Peraltada turn and was killed instantly, sparking a period of national mourning in the country.
Age at debut: 19 years, 182 days
Debut race: 1980 Canadian Grand Prix
Some might find Thackwell’s place on this list a little contentious. It’s true that Thackwell lined up on the grid in Tyrell’s third car at the 1980 Canadian Grand Prix. It’s also true that he managed to make it back to the start/finish line. In between that however, Alan Jones and Nelson Piquet had collided and were subsequently hit by a number of cars, including his Tyrell teammates Jean-Pierre Jarier and Derek Daly.
After being stopped, the race was restarted with Thackwell to give up his car for Jarier.
He never really shone after that and in 1981 returned to Formula Two for a number of successful seasons. During what was probably his best season, he returned to Formula One but never really managed to secure a regular spot on any team.
Image: Mark McArdle via Wikipedia
Age at debut: 19 years, 125 days
Debut race: 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix
And now the man whose record Max Verstappen will eclipse next year. Alguersuari qualified last in his first Grand Prix and finished the race in fifteenth, one place ahead of his Toro Rosso teammate Sébastien Buemi.
Things didn’t get much better after that, with the Spaniard only finishing in the points on a handful of occasions.
We can however expect to see him in a new code fairly soon. In March 2014, Alguersuari announced that he will compete with Virgin Racing in the upcoming Formula E series.
