F1 team boss reveals 'crazy' claim over signing Max Verstappen

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F1 team boss reveals 'crazy' claim over signing Verstappen

He says he got tired of defending the decision to give the Dutchman a contract

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Thursday 23 November 2023 17:57 Updated: 21:14

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Franz Tost has said that he told journalists to come back to him in five years, after repeatedly having to defend his decision to sign Max Verstappen back in 2015.

The Dutchman was just 16 when he was given his first Formula 1 contract by Toro Rosso and, by the time he made his debut at the 2015 Australian Grand Prix, he was aged 17 years and 166 days, making him the youngest driver in history to start an F1 race.

Indeed, Verstappen was still too young to drive a car unsupervised on the road in his home country of Netherlands, a point that was constantly put forward by pundits and journalists at the time.

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Verstappen only drove one full season with Red Bull's sister team before he was promoted into the top team, winning his first race in F1 in his first race for Red Bull at the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix. The rest, as they say, is history.

Franz Tost has been the team principal of the team formerly known as Toro Rosso since 2005

Max Verstappen was just 17 when he drove alongside Carlos Sainz at Toro Rosso

Max Verstappen is now a three-time world champion

Tost totally crazy

Franz Tost, who will be leaving his role as AlphaTauri team principal at the end of 2023, was Verstappen's first boss in the sport and, speaking to the Beyond the Grid podcast, agreed that he is the best driver he has worked with.

“Then of course Max [Verstappen]. Max because of his unbelievable speed," he said.

“When we brought him to Formula 1, I remember back some of your colleagues came to me and said you’re totally crazy, how can you take someone who doesn’t even have a driver’s license?

“And I said, I don’t want to discuss this with you now, come in five years and then we can discuss it because then I got tired of defending our decision.

“This unbelievable natural speed, you could see, sometimes in Formula 3, I remember back at this wet race at the Norisring, I thought Max was driving on a dry line because he was two seconds faster than the rest," he continued.

“This reminded me also of when Michael Schumacher won the Formula 4 race at the Salzburg Ring in similar conditions and he was also two, three seconds faster than the rest.

“And then this is important for me, I want to see what a driver is doing in our car.”