Red Bull star gets Max Verstappen’s car stuck as footage emerges | F1 | Sport
Max Verstappen’s GT3 racing car was just a few inches away from being crashed into hay bales when an attempted donut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed went wrong. The Red Bull-branded Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO, in which Verstappen and his team-mates contested the 24 Hours of the Nurburgring back in May, was one of many impressive racing machines put their their paces at the West Sussex circuit on Friday.
Verstappen was not behind the wheel himself – he was not part of the Festival of Speed’s line-up, so behind the wheel of the car was Red Bull‘s next exciting prospect. Nikola Tsolov is currently leading the Formula 2 championship having dominated the British Grand Prix, winning both F2 races held at Silverstone last weekend.
And he was behind the wheel of the GT3 car as he drove it up the hill on Friday, stopping to attempt a couple of donuts to put on a show for the crowd. However, he misjudged his first attempt at swinging the car around and he slammed on the brakes to aboid hitting a hay bale, coming to a stop on the grass.
The intervention of marshals was then required to help push the car back onto the tarmac, so that Tsolov could get it pointing in the right direction again and hastily continue his drive up the hill. The whole incident was shown on the official YouTube livestream of Friday’s action, and prompted a few chuckles in the commentary box.
“And he’s stopped so that the fans can have a look!” the lead commentator joked, adding: “Nothing untoward, that will be reversed out… There he goes, no damage done. Well, I’m trying to see if he did any damage to the car. I think he just nosed in.”
Having been talking about Verstappen’s Nurburgring 24 Hours effort just seconds before the incident, the commentator also made it clear: “The driver on board is not Max Verstappen, by the way, it’s Nikola Tsolov, so Max is in the clear for that one. But it wasn’t much of a slip-up, he was just trying to put on a show and it just went slightly loose on him. But it’s great to have that Red Bull-Mercedes, the AMG GT3 EVO.”
Tsolov has had an excellent year up to now, though, and has given Red Bull something of a driver selection headache for the 2027 season. If star driver Verstappen stays, they will have no room in either of their teams to promote the Bulgarian without axing one of their other stars who is also performing well. Isack Hadjar has made a strong start to life alongside Verstappen, while Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad are on impressive scoring streaks for junior outfit Racing Bulls.
Regardless, Adrian Campos, boss of Tsolov’s Campos Racing team in F2, insists the driver is deserving of an F1 promotion. He said: “He’s the one making the difference. We are giving him a good car, but he’s the one making the difference. He does everything so easily, and that is surprising everyone. And to be honest, I really hope that he gets a chance in F1. He really deserves it.”
