Minardi's memories of a young Verstappen: 'He probably doesn't remember'

It has been 18 years since the Minardi name appeared on the Formula 1 grid, but former owner Gian Carlo Minardi has had dealings with two of the drivers currently involved in the world championship. One was very young... the other even more so! GPblog spoke about this, among other things, with Minardi in an exclusive interview.

In 2001 Gian Carlo Minardi had already sold his team to Paul Stoddard but continued to play a leading role in the Faenza-based team. In that year, a 20-year-old Spaniard made his Formula 1 debut with Minardi, and he would be the talk of the town. His name? Fernando Alonso.

"Fernando arrived at Faenza when he was 18 years old after one of the many tests we used to do at the end of the season, as we did every year, trying to reward the winners of all the various minor formulas," says Minardi, who then adds: "it is clear that we immediately saw that he had an edge.

Fernando Alonso was already flying off to another team: "We gave him a contract that expired in 2006, then at the end of 2000 for many reasons that are useless to list now and also to create continuity and certainty for Fernando, since we believed in him a lot, we made an agreement with Flavio Briatore and Benetton, and we gave him the contract on one condition: until he raced with Benetton, he would race with Minardi."

Dutch drivers

In those years, several Dutch drivers were behind the wheel for Minardi. At the dawn of their careers, Christijan Albers and Robert Dornboos arrived in Faenza, while in 2003, Jos Verstappen raced his final season in F1 with Minardi. At the time, current world champion Max Verstappen was six years old. Minardi recounts: "[Jos] took him once to Faenza, I have photographs at home where he still has his shorts on, little boy, he was with his father, he probably doesn't even remember."

However, Gian Carlo Minardi has also had to deal with the other Dutch driver we find on the grid in 2023. "In my old age, when I started to collaborate with the Italian Federation for young drivers, [De Vries] was one of the drivers I liked the most, so much so that I recommended him to the Ferrari Driver Academy at the time, but I'm talking about ten years ago."

Minardi still believes strongly in the Dutch driver. "I believe that Nick De Vries will certainly be talked about in the future. It is clear that we are at the second race [the interview was conducted before the Australian GP]; you arrive in a new team. It is not easy".