One Risk That F1 Champ Max Verstappen Is Not Willing to Take: Rally Racing

Max Verstappen is not happy with the current Formula 1 ruleset and previously indicated that, even if he stays competitive, he won’t stay in F1 forever. As far as where the four-time champion might go next, rallying isn’t on the list.

Max’s father Jos started rallying in 2022 and has proven competitive, winning last year’s Belgian championship. That’s given the younger Verstappen more of an appreciation for the sport, but as he explained in a recent appearance on the Up To Speed podcast (the relevant part is around the 20-minute mark), he’s not willing to take the risk of trying it himself.

“When we rent a little space on an airport, they set up a track and we drive together,” Verstappen said. “Honestly, I have to go flat out to beat him on a lap. And that I like doing.

“But on a proper stage… I mean he shares [with] me all the videos he’s doing in whatever kind of rally car he’s driving, I find it impressive, I think it’s really cool. But I just think about if I make a mistake and I hit that tree, the tree is not moving.

“That for me is like my limit, that’s something I don’t want to do. It’s too high of a risk—and I know it sounds maybe a bit silly—but in Formula 1 most of the time when you crash there is a properly-designed barrier that should absorb the impact a bit more.”

It’s not silly at all. It wasn’t a massive crash at the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix that derailed Robert Kubica’s F1 career (he won that race the following year, his only grand prix win), but a 2011 rallying accident in which a metal barrier skewered the Pole’s Škoda Fabia. Kubica beat the odds by returning to F1 in 2019 and scoring a single point in a back-marker Williams, and would go on to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Ferrari, but a promising F1 stint with the Scuderia never happened.

Verstappen’s post-F1 career is more likely to center around sports cars. He made his GT racing debut at the Nürburgring Nordschleife last fall, and told The Drive in a 2024 interview that endurance racing is highly appealing to him. It would definitely be something to see Verstappen follow in the footsteps of Graham Hill and Fernando Alonso by tackling Le Mans as an F1 champ, but personally, I’m hoping he chooses NASCAR.

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