Verstappen sweeps hat-trick of awards

Rookie Formula One driver impressed all with exciting maiden season

LONDON: Dutch rookie Max Verstappen, signed controversially as a 16-year-old by Toro Rosso, has swept a hat-trick of awards after confounding his critics in an impressive debut Formula One season.

Now 18, the son of former racer Jos won votes for Rookie of the Year, Action of the Year and Personality of the Year at the International Automobile Federation (FIA)’s end-of-year prize-giving in Paris.

The FIA said it was the first time any driver had taken more than one of the special, non-championship related awards in the same season.



The rookie award is decided by the FIA’s driver commission, headed by Brazilian two-time Formula One champion Emerson Fittipaldi.

The personality award is voted by the world’s media from across the FIA championships, including rallying and endurance.

The action category is the result of a global vote by motorsport fans, with Verstappen winning for his overtake on Brazilian Felipe Nasr at Blanchimont during the Belgian Grand Prix, the closest thing to a home race for the teenager. Verstappen won the same award last year while in Formula Three.



“It’s nice to win the Action of the Year for the second time, because I really enjoy overtaking on track,” said Verstappen. “It’s a great honour to win the Rookie of the Year award, I have to say that getting two fourth-place finishes in my first season is more than I expected.”

The third award perplexed the teenager, but he was far from complaining. “Personality of the Year? I’m not sure why I won that, but it’s nice to know the media like me,” said Verstappen, whose arrival in Formula One was so precocious that the FIA changed the licence rules and introduced a minimum age of 18.

Verstappen was the highest-scoring Formula One rookie of the season, finishing 12th overall with 49 points after finishing fourth in Hungary and the US. Sauber’s Nasr was 13th with 27.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 6^th, 2015.

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