Max Verstappen Takes on 100 Rivals in Karting Gauntlet
Max Verstappen has spent the year making Formula 1 look routine. So the four-time world champion is doing what champions often do when dominance starts to feel normal: he’s gone looking for chaos.
At Silverstone, Verstappen is taking on 100 rivals at once in a made-for-TV karting gauntlet, “Max vs 100,” a stunt that sounds like a YouTube fever dream but is being staged with all the polish of a global broadcast.
Thirty laps. One Red Bull superstar. One hundred karts to pass.
Same machinery, no excuses
Every kart on the grid is identical. No trick engines, no secret setups, no Red Bull magic hidden under the bodywork. To close the gap even further, each driver-plus-kit package must weigh 85kg. Anyone under that figure gets ballast bolted on until the scales say yes.
It’s a purist’s idea of fairness: Verstappen’s advantage comes only from his right foot, his racecraft, and the instincts forged in the ruthless world of European karting.
Lined up against him is a grid that looks nothing like a standard race weekend entry list. Streamers Pieface, Caedrel and TheDonato are in the mix. Ultrarunner Arda Saatçi swaps long-distance trails for tight apexes. Chris “Lethal Shooter” Matthews, famed for his laser-guided basketball stroke, trades the three-point line for braking points. Even 2019 Love Island winner Amber Gill is on the roster, part of a cast built for spectacle as much as speed.
Their job is simple: stay ahead of Verstappen for as long as possible. His job is simpler still, at least on paper: pass them all.
“I’m hoping that with my background, I should be faster than most,” Verstappen told ESPN, the hint of a grin never far away. “I hope! I mean, it would be quite embarrassing if they’re faster than me!”
A hundred moving targets
This is not a straight fight with a handful of professionals who know every trick in the book. It’s a rolling traffic jam of wildly different abilities, racing lines and confidence levels. That’s where the jeopardy lies.
“A hundred is a lot, you know,” Verstappen said. “But I think how they’ve set up the track from what they’ve shown me, I think it will be good. But it’s still going to be hectic, for sure.”
Hectic is the point. With 30 laps to clear the field, Verstappen can’t afford to sit back and wait for gaps to appear. He’ll need to read the pace of the drivers around him instantly, attack without hesitation and manage the risk of getting bottled up behind slower traffic while faster rivals slip away.
Asked about tactics, he kept it stripped back.
“I think I first need to understand and see the level between drivers,” he said. “I also don’t like to overthink the situation. I just need to go with the flow and try to make the best of it.”
That’s the racer talking. Feel the grip. Judge the pack. Strike when the door opens.
Made for the big stage
The event, held on Sept. 16 at Silverstone, is being treated like a prime-time showpiece. ESPN is carrying it live globally on Disney+, with an hour-long build-up before the 6 p.m. start. In the U.S., the race also streams on the ESPN App for Unlimited subscribers, followed by a delayed broadcast on ESPN2 later in the day.
The production reflects Verstappen’s drawing power. Formula 1’s most relentless winner, stripped of his usual machinery, dropped into a level playing field and told to carve his way through a swarm of underdogs. It’s part motorsport experiment, part entertainment spectacle.
There is no world championship point at stake, no constructors’ bonus on the line. Just pride. And the unspoken reality that if even a handful of amateurs can keep a four-time world champion behind them in identical karts, they’ll dine out on that story for years.
For Verstappen, it’s something else: a brief return to the discipline that built him, with the whole world watching to see if anyone can stop him when the cars are equal and the numbers are stacked against him.
