When Max Verstappen started at Toro Rosso, his race engineer had a lot of work to do to get the Dutchman ready for Formula 1. According to Xevi Pujolar, Verstappen had little knowledge of the sport, but was learning very quickly.

A Formula One driver has to know a lot about the sport to perform well. That can be quite overwhelming, especially when you are only 17 years old. Xevi Pujolar, the former race engineer of Max Verstappen at Toro Rosso, had a lot of work to do with his new pupil in the team's factory.

According to the Spaniard, this was certainly necessary. "It started with information about the sessions during a race weekend and what we expect in them to explaining about building up to a weekend. He had zero knowledge, so we talked a lot," the engineer told The Dutch newspaper.

A sponge of knowledge

On the other hand, the young Dutchman's race engineer was also surprised by how quickly Verstappen was able to absorb everything. "Sometimes I thought he would really run out of steam. You could see from his face that he was tired, but even then he kept absorbing everything. Because after that we started testing things and he immediately asked very directly about things we had discussed," Pujolar continued.

Not only did the pair spend a lot of time together at Toro Rosso's factory and during race weekends, Pujolar also took time outside of the factory to build a rapport with the driver. "I wanted to get to know the real Max. It takes some time, but you sometimes know better how a driver will behave on the track if you know him off the track as well. You have to understand him," concluded the race engineer.