EXCLUSIVE: Meeting F1's Max Verstappen - Red Bull star’s ‘cool’ canteen encounter

Max Verstappen, Red Bull, Bahrain, 2024 — Photo: © IMAGO

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EXCLUSIVE: Meeting F1's Max Verstappen - Red Bull star’s ‘cool’ canteen encounter

World champion racing drivers still have to eat and share canteens with everyone else

Jim Kimberley

Thursday 28 March 2024 17:57 Updated: 18:09

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Red Bull Racing may be Formula 1’s powerhouse team right now, but there is still something universal about how the Milton Keynes team operates under the hood.

Following in the footsteps of F1 racewinners Max Verstappen, Daniel Ricciardo, and Carlos Sainz, Formula 3's Ollie Goethe joined the Red Bull Junior Team in November 2023.

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The teenage driver took the 2022 Euroformula title with ease and comfortably took the step up to F3 in 2023 to catch the attention of Helmut Marko and Christian Horner with race-winning and pole position drives.

Yet even F3 stars and World Constructors Championship-winning operations have to eat.

Dining with the stars

In an exclusive interview with GPFans, Goethe recalls how an early moment in the Red Bull camp led to a casual yet memorable encounter with Max Verstappen, the reigning triple world champion, at the Milton Keynes headquarters.

"I briefly met him," begins Goethe. "We didn't really talk. It was my first day in Milton Keynes, and he was there. We ended up on the same table in the canteen for lunch. But it was just a brief saying hi.

"It's definitely surreal, like seeing him in person. It's a cool feeling. He's winning all the races in F1. He's who everyone's looking up to at the moment because he's dominating.

"Hopefully, in the future, we can talk — he would be the person to give the best advice, for sure."

Goethe moved from Trident to Campos for the 2024 season alongside Juan Pablo Montoya’s son Sebastián Montoya and Spaniard Mari Boya.

FIA Formula 3 kicked off alongside the opening Formula 1 race in Bahrain, where Goethe started his sophomore season in the third tier of motorsport.

Max Verstappen Mercedes Formula 3