His family, including Mick, have largely maintained a dignified silence on the
subject.
Mick Schumacher is not the only precocious young talent who has been given
high billing in recent days. If coming into the pinnacle of motorsport two
years younger than anyone has managed in history was not enough, 16-year-old
Max Verstappen has now been compared to Ayrton Senna, the three-time
champion widely regarded as one of the greatest in Formula One history, by
his Red Bull hierarchy.
Verstappen, who embarrassingly crashed on a demonstration run in his native
Rotterdam, has not even turned a wheel in anger in F1, but that has not
stopped Dr Helmut Marko lauding enormous praise on the teenager.
When asked to compare Verstappen to another driver, Dr Marko replied: “He
[Verstappen] is an exceptional talent that comes along only once in decades.
You must not look at his age.
“He has been talking with people who are experts when it comes to the
development of youngsters and they all say that [in terms of] his mind he is
more like 22 than 16.
“And regarding his skills behind the steering wheel, he has been racing since
he was four years old – professionally. So we expect him to be competitive
from the first race.”
Verstappen is set to make his free practice debut at the next race in Suzuka,
Japan.