The Tamesis
There has been speculation that Verstappen may soon quit the sport, with his dissatisfaction with the FIA’s new standards no doubt part of the rumor mill. While I didn’t ask him about his retirement plans, he did discuss another aspect of his future: Verstappen is building a GT3 team (GT3, like F1, IndyCar or NASCAR, is just another category of racing with a different type of car). “GT3 is quite expensive if you really want to be good at it,” he said. “If you want to win, there aren’t a lot of teams that actually make money, but that’s OK. If I do something, I want to win – I don’t want to just be in it. I want it to be a dream team with the people, the drivers and the platform.”
I asked him if he still had any personal goals in Formula 1. “Of course, I want to win the championship again,” he said (he came very close in 2025, finishing two points behind McLaren’s Lando Norris). “But no – no real wish list. The main ones have been done. What I want now are smaller achievements – like winning on our own power unit, that kind of thing. I’m just passionate about racing and trying to build more knowledge – even computing power and artificial intelligence, which is pretty scary in a way, but cool. You need to be a bit geeky about these things, but I love it.”
We headed west to Cap dell’Avenir, past Monaco’s awe-inspiring Port Hercule and a series of modern apartment buildings with sweeping sea views, one of which Verstappen calls home. Just as the day is coming to an end and the waves have calmed down a bit, Verstappen is on board taking the final shots, his square-dial TAG Heuer Monaco sparkling like obsidian in the golden air. Verstappen looked down at the watch, a gift from the brand and customized with three stars when he became a three-time world champion. (A fourth star was added when he won his fourth championship.)
It was then, for a brief moment, that Verstappen seemed to let go of F1, GT3 or what was to come after the car – an almost imperceptible loosening of the project. We talked extensively about how he would spend his time when this was all done.
“For example, I’ve never been to South Africa. I also love Japan and would like to explore it more. I would like to have less time pressure when visiting, like ‘it’s Formula 1 next week’. Maybe one day you no longer have that pressure and you can go on a long vacation…”
