Verstappen: I never felt like it was big pressure

The tale of the teenager - the off-spring of two racing drivers - who made his debut for Toro Rosso at the 2015 Australian Grand Prix is well told, as will be remembered there was a swathe of opinion at the time that the kid was too young and inexperienced for F1, but Verstappen is adamant that his early induction was the best thing that happened to him.

Speaking to Racer, Verstappen said, “I only had one year of F3 experience, and of course you make some mistakes in F1 which maybe other people did in juniors or whatever, but for me that’s fine."

"I prefer to be at the highest level and make the mistakes and learn from it, instead of being in the lower categories and then maybe some mistakes can cost you your career in F1."

Today Verstappen is the biggest jewel in the Red Bull crown of drivers, in effect the leader of the (four-car) team who have their F1 hopes invested in the 21-year-old for the future.

Despite the greater pressure of being the star driver for the energy drinks organisation, he remains unflappable, “For me not much has changed because the feedback I was giving already last year was the same as I’m doing now. If it would be different then for sure I would be doing a bad job last year, that’s how I always approach it."

“Personally, I always feel like I can feel what the car is doing. For my age anyway, I’m very experienced at that because of working with my Dad from a very young age, trying to give good feedback."

Verstappen referencing his father Jos, himself a former F1 driver, who was the force and mastermind behind his son's illustrious karting career while overseeing his progress into F3 where he raced for a season before being snapped up by Helmut Marko.

Today Verstappen junior is the de facto team leader but as usual, nothing fazes him, "I never felt like it was big pressure or anything to maybe step it up a bit within the team because I felt like I was already giving the right information."