Max Verstappen Started In 101st Place And Still Won The Kart Race

Max Verstappen just thrashed 100 kart racers in the Max v 100 go-karting event at Silverstone. (Photo by Bradley Collyer/PA Images via Getty Images)

PA Images via Getty Images

If anyone needed reminding that Max Verstappen knows how to drive a kart at the limit and overtake, the four-time Formula One world champion provided a fairly emphatic demonstration at Silverstone on Wednesday. Starting behind no fewer than 100 other drivers, Verstappen carved his way through the entire field to win Red Bull’s extraordinary “Max vs 100” karting challenge in just 35 minutes.

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The September 16 event was staged at Britain’s famous Silverstone Circuit as a first-of-its-kind collaboration between Red Bull, Disney+ and ESPN. Part sporting contest, part entertainment spectacle, its premise was wonderfully simple: put one of the world’s greatest racing drivers at the very back of a 101-kart grid and see whether he could overtake everybody before time ran out. The race was also designed to take Verstappen back to his racing roots. Long before his 71 Grand Prix victories and four consecutive F1 world championships, the Dutchman learned his racecraft in karts.

Max got 30 laps to win but he breezed it in under 14 laps

The circuit itself was purpose-built for the event by former karting world champion David Terrien, incorporating Silverstone’s kart venue with sections associated with the Grand Prix circuit. Organizers gave Verstappen a maximum of 30 laps and 75 minutes to get from 101st to first. All competitors drove identical spec karts, with the challengers also receiving a “fast lap” shortcut that could be deployed to help keep Verstappen behind. Once Verstappen passed a competitor, however, that driver was eliminated and had to pull out.

The field was hardly conventional. It included athletes, YouTubers, journalists, celebrities, automotive personalities and ordinary racing fans from around the world. Among the better-known entrants were skateboarder Leticia Bufoni, climber Janja Garnbret, ultrarunner Arda Saatçi, mountain biker Matt Jones, motorcycle racer Billy Bolt, automotive photographer Larry Chen, TV personality Amber Gill and content creator Zac Alsop. F1 journalist Jacky Martens started from pole, while Red Bull Powertrains technician Lewis Osler was among the fastest challengers.

What happened next was borderline ridiculous.

Verstappen passed 64 karts on the opening lap alone. With 101 rivals attempting to negotiate the circuit simultaneously, the opening sprint produced precisely the sort of chaos you might expect. Karts bumped and tangled, competitors became stranded, and Verstappen somehow kept finding gaps. He later admitted that seeing 100 karts ahead of him on the grid had initially been daunting, but after surviving the carnage of lap one, he knew the challenge was under control.

By lap four, he had dispatched 75 rivals. A lap later that number had risen to 84, and by around lap eight he was already threatening the leading group. At one point Verstappen even warned his remaining prey over the radio: “I’m coming for you.” Organizers attempted to make his task harder by giving the leading drivers an additional fast-lap advantage, but it merely postponed the inevitable.

The closing stages provided some of the best entertainment. Verstappen hunted down the leading trio of Alsop, Osler and Martens, passing Alsop and Osler together with a move down the inside near the end of the lap. That left pole-sitter Martens as the final obstacle. Verstappen caught and passed the Dutch journalist at the final turn to complete his sweep of all 100 competitors. Sources differ slightly on whether the finish came on lap 13 or 14, but agree the entire exercise took roughly 35 minutes—less than half the allotted time.

“Simply lovely,” Verstappen said after completing the job, borrowing one of his familiar radio phrases. He then collected his trophy and joked that it was his “first one of the year.”

It was, of course, an entertainment event rather than serious competition. Yet “Max vs 100” offered something Formula One rarely can: an opportunity to watch an elite driver negotiate traffic on an almost absurd scale, using anticipation, positioning and instinct rather than simply superior machinery.

And perhaps that was the real point. Strip away the multimillion-dollar F1 car, aerodynamicists, simulators and telemetry, put Verstappen back into a kart—and the racer who started there more than two decades ago is still very much present.

One hundred opponents found that out the hard way.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com

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