what he said about Juan Manuel Fangio

The king of motorsports in recent times, Max Verstappenthis weekend he stayed with the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix. The Dutchman is the three-time world champion, after winning the titles in 2021, 2022 and 2023 and in the current one he won six of the nine games played so far. Despite having a wide variety of achievements under his belt, such as breaking time records, he is not considered one of the best in history. The 26-year-old driver put together his Top 5 F1 racers in all of history and gave a lot to talk about.

He inherited his passion for speed 100%. His father (If) He was a Formula 1 driver in the ’90s and 2000s, while his mother was a karting racer. Besides, his uncle knew how to be a NASCAR champion. Born in Hasselt, Belgium, he decided to become a citizen when he came of age. His argument was: “I feel more Dutch than Belgian. “I only went to Belgium to sleep, then I was in the Netherlands all day, all my friends are from there and I was raised Dutch and that’s how I feel.”

The truth is that Mad Max, when asked by his five favorite pilots in all of history, chose to avoid the question at first. Quickly, almost without thinking about the names, he responded: “Do you know what’s going on? Whatever I say, people are going to comment and not agree with me.”. However, in an interview with DAZN, the F1 dominator selected his favorite. On his list he put four runners from the modern era and in the remaining one he turned to history…

The multi-champion of Red Bull He decided who his five favorite drivers are and was surprised by the position he gave to the Argentine, who marked a before and after in the sport. “I’m going to go with Michael Schumacherprobably Ayrton Senna, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton y Juan Manuel Fangio… old school“, said the Dutchman, defining the legendary Argentine midfielder with those couple of words. Mad Max thus chose four stars of these times, but also reserved a place for Chueco de Balcarce.

The 26-year-old driver, who just won the Canadian GP, ​​did not forget Fangio. The Argentine was the the only one to be crowned with four different teams: Alfa Romeo, Mercedes Benz, Ferrari and Maserati. Furthermore, the five-time world champion had a very high effectiveness percentage (47.05), consecrating in 24 of 51 Formula 1 Grand Prix that he disputed. It should be noted that in the times of ‘Chueco’ there were no more than 10 awards per year, while currently 24 are contested.

Although Verstappen warned in advance that putting together a list of the best would be controversial, his top caught attention. He left out of the five pilots of great magnitude such as Alain Prost, Jackie Stewart, Niki Lauda y Nelson Piquet, who became champions of the category on several occasions. The Frenchman was champion four times, while the British, the Austrian and the Brazilian were the reigning F1 champions three times.

Piquet is also Max’s father-in-law: the Dutchman is in a relationship with the famous influencer Kelly Piquet. Based on the family, she confessed: “I really we don’t talk about motorsports. I’ve talked about it more than enough in his life. At a certain point, you don’t feel it anymore and you don’t talk about it anymore. “I realize that there is more to life outside of this.” In a way, she decided to justify the absence of her father-in-law in the “top five” in this way.

The former team rider Red Bull He also stated at what stage he would have liked to compete. “I’m happy with everything I have now, but I think I’d probably choose the early 2000s. I choose it simply because of the sound of the engine”. Then he elaborated: “Most of us drivers start because we love the sport and that is still the case. “We want to win, that’s the most important thing, money is secondary.”.