Max Verstappen completed Red Bull’s 'Max vs 100' challenge by moving from the very back of a 101-kart field to first place after 14 laps, a run that exposed how quickly a professional driver can erase an amateur field’s small advantages. The event used a special layout that linked Silverstone’s kart circuit with parts of the grand prix track, including Brooklands, and organisers treated each lap as roughly a two-minute effort.
All karts were nominally identical. Amateurs were allowed one ‘fast lap’ in the race’s opening half, using a shortcut intended to let hobby drivers build a buffer, and the event applied a strict elimination rule, removing any amateur the moment a rival passed them. Those conditions made the opening laps decisive, and Verstappen treated lap one as a sprint, gaining 64 places on his first circuit.
“When I was walking to the grid and saw where I had to start, I was like, ‘oof, that’s very far back’,” Verstappen said. He described settling after that first tour and then pressuring through the field. By lap four he had picked off 75 rivals, the count rose to 84 on the following circuit, and by lap seven he had worked into the top four as the pace of eliminations slowed.
During the charge Verstappen ran over an inside kerb and lofted briefly, leaving debris on the circuit, and radioed a competitor, “I’m coming for you.” Organisers offered an additional ‘fast lap’ to try to prolong the contest, but the final trio were content creator Zac Alsop, journalist Jacky Martens and Red Bull employee Lewis Osler. Verstappen swept past Alsop and Osler together with an inside move into the penultimate corner, then took Martens at the final turn to complete the clean sweep.
“The first lap was just chaos, you want to survive, and then after that it was a bit like just hunting them down so that was nice,” Verstappen said. “Just put the laps in yourself and catch them one by one.” The outcome underlined the gulf between a current Formula 1 world champion and a mixed field of content creators, athletes and motorsport fans when they share identical machinery.
