Max Verstappen at 29: 4 Titles, 73 Wins, and a Contract to 2030
In short: Max Verstappen was born on 30 September 1997, which makes him 29 years old as of 12 October 2026. He has four world titles (2021 to 2024) and, per Formula 1's official record checked on 12 October 2026, 73 career wins. He holds Dutch and Belgian nationality, still drives for Red Bull Racing, and carries number 3.
Summary: how old is Max Verstappen, and where is he now?
- Age 29 (born 30 September 1997). He debuted at 17, so 2026 is already his twelfth season in F1.
- Four world titles (2021–2024). Not five. The 2025 championship went to Lando Norris by two points.
- Career totals: 73 wins, 50 poles, 136 podiums (through the 11 October 2026 Singapore Grand Prix, Formula 1 official record).
- The 2026 season started badly. Twelve rounds in, in August, he sat sixth on 112 points with no win and no pole. He then won the Bahrain Grand Prix (rerun at Sepang in Malaysia) on 4 October and the Singapore Grand Prix on 11 October.
- On 20 August 2026 he signed with Red Bull through the end of 2030. He has said he weighed quitting F1 before deciding.
Profile and career numbers
| Born / age | 30 September 1997 / 29 (as of 12 October 2026) |
| Nationality | Dutch · Belgian |
| Team | Red Bull Racing, car number 3 |
| F1 debut | 2015 Australian GP, aged 17 years 166 days (youngest ever) |
| First win | 2016 Spanish GP, aged 18 years 228 days (youngest ever) |
| World titles | 4 (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024) |
| Career | 73 wins · 50 poles · 136 podiums · 3,665.5 points (checked 12 October 2026) |
| Contract | Through the end of 2030 (signed 20 August 2026) |
Career figures are taken from Formula 1's official driver page, checked on 12 October 2026 and current to the Singapore Grand Prix on 11 October. One common mix-up is worth clearing: the youngest pole-sitter is not Verstappen but Vettel at Monza in 2008. Verstappen's first pole came late, in Hungary in 2019.
Karting at four, world champion at fifteen
His father, Jos Verstappen, raced in F1 for Benetton among others. In 2001, when Max was four, Jos put him in a kart he had built himself, and went on to manage the entire junior career as manager, mechanic and coach. Max, though, credits his mother for the talent. Sophie Kumpen raced karts against Trulli and Räikkönen, and he has said many times that his feel for a car came from her side.
In 2013 he took three CIK-FIA championships in a single season. Winning the KZ world title at fifteen still stands as the youngest ever.
The petrol station story, with both versions
It happened in 2012, after a retirement at a karting event in Sarno, Italy. Jos told the fourteen-year-old to shut up and sit in the back, then pulled into a petrol station and told him to get out, saying he did not want to hear his voice any more.
The story usually gets told as a father abandoning his son, and Jos rejects that framing. He knew Sophie was five minutes behind on the same road, and says he intended to come back. Max's own account agrees on that point. What both sides agree on is what followed: seventeen hours home in silence, and a week in which Jos did not speak to him.
One season of single-seaters, and a rule change
His single-seater career is remarkably thin. It is one season, the 2014 FIA European F3 championship. The sixteen-year-old rookie took ten wins including six in a row, yet finished third in the standings, with the title going to the far steadier Esteban Ocon. Before that season was even over, in August 2014, Toro Rosso signed him. He skipped F2 entirely.
The FIA rewrote its rules because of that deal. From 2016, a superlicence required the driver to be at least 18, hold a road licence, complete 300 km of F1 testing, and clear a points threshold in junior categories. The conditions are laid out in the F1 superlicence guide. The route he took is now closed.
2023, a wall few can climb
Even among four titles, 2023 sits apart: 19 wins from 22 races, an 86.36% strike rate, and ten straight victories that erased Vettel's nine. The strangest number is laps led. He led 1,003 of the season's 1,325 laps, or 75.7%, the first driver to lead more than a thousand laps in a season. That total is exactly what McLaren managed in 1988 with Senna and Prost combined.
Two points in 2025, sixth place in 2026
The run of four ended in 2025. Norris finished on 423 points, Verstappen on 421. Verstappen won more races, eight to seven, and clawed back a 104-point deficit by taking five of the last eight. On 7 December in Abu Dhabi he took pole and won the race, but Norris only needed third, and third is what he got.
2026 has been harsher. With the power unit and chassis rules changing at once, Red Bull became the biggest casualty. Ninth after three rounds was his worst start since his debut season, and team principal Mekies admitted the RB22 had a significant flaw. Twelve rounds in, in mid-August, he was sixth on 112 points, with four podiums and four retirements. In October he finally won, taking the Bahrain Grand Prix (rerun at Sepang) on the 4th and the Singapore Grand Prix on the 11th.
His contract carried a performance clause: outside the top two at the summer break, he could leave for 2027. He was sixth, so the clause was live. Instead, on 20 August, days before his home race at Zandvoort, he signed on to the end of 2030. The old deal ran to 2028. He has said that before deciding he seriously considered stopping altogether. His debut this year at the Nürburgring 24 Hours in a Mercedes-AMG GT3, leading with three hours left until a driveshaft broke, belongs to the same story.
So: 29 years old, four titles, 73 wins. The debut and youngest-winner records are still his, and there are four more seasons on the contract. What he earns is covered separately in Max Verstappen's salary.
Sources
- Formula 1 official driver record (checked 12 October 2026)
- Formula 1 2026 driver results (checked 12 October 2026)