Max vs 100: Verstappen's last-to-first kart race at Silverstone

Some of the best racing of 2026 didn't happen in a Grand Prix. On Wednesday 16 September, Red Bull's Max vs 100 put a four-time Formula 1 world champion at the very back of a 101-kart grid at Silverstone and asked one question: how long would it take him to pass everybody?

The setup

The race ran on a kart track built at Silverstone specifically for the event, designed by French driver and kart designer David Terrien to fit 101 karts at once. Red Bull billed it as the largest go-kart race ever staged.

Verstappen started 101st. The other 100 drivers were a mix of athletes, streamers, content creators, journalists and fans. Among them were ultrarunner Arda Saatçi, mountain-bike rider Matt Jones and streamers TheGrefg and Caedrel. Dutch journalist Jacky Martens started on pole.

There were no handicaps and no elimination rounds: one mass start, scheduled for 30 laps, with Verstappen carving his way forward through the whole field. It was streamed live on Disney+, and in the US on the ESPN app with a delayed broadcast on ESPN2.

The race

The first lap decided a lot. A hairpin bottleneck brought out a yellow flag, and Verstappen had passed more than ten drivers before he even crossed the start line. Two minutes in, he was 37th. "To be honest the first lap could not have gone any better with the carnage," he said afterwards. He was in the top ten by lap five, survived a trip off the track on lap six, and finished the job on lap 14 of 30, with 35 minutes still on the clock.

The result

1. Max Verstappen, from 101st on the grid · verstappen.com · Instagram
2. Jacky Martens, the pole-sitter
3. Lewis Osler, a Red Bull Ford Powertrains technician
4. Zac Alsop, YouTuber · YouTube · Instagram

Why it was worth remembering

Formula 1 races are often decided by strategy and tyre deltas you can't see. This one was decided by overtakes you could count. It was a world champion back in the kind of kart he grew up racing, a hundred people trying to stay out of his way, and a scoreboard that only went in one direction. We'd put it up against any Grand Prix this season for pure entertainment.

Red Bull's 20-minute cut of the race is at the top of this page, and ESPN UK's highlights of the funniest team-radio moments are below. The full race is on Disney+, and on the ESPN app in the US. The finishing order for all 101 drivers is on Red Bull's results page, linked under Sources.