Seven weekends, seven races: why Max Verstappen just wants to race
From Baku to São Paulo, Max Verstappen races seven weekends in a row, and his GT World Challenge debut at Portimão sits right in the middle
Baku, Sepang, Singapore, Portimão, Austin, Mexico City, São Paulo. Seven weekends in a row, seven races. Six of them are Formula 1 Grands Prix. The one in the middle is a three-hour GT3 race that nobody asked Max Verstappen to do, in the middle of a stretch that most drivers would spend resting between flights. He does it anyway, because Verstappen does not really do weekends off.
The official F1 calendar confirms the run. Azerbaijan was on 26 September, the Bahrain Grand Prix at Sepang on 4 October and Singapore on 11 October, which Verstappen won. On Saturday 17 October he makes his GT World Challenge Europe debut at Portimão. Then come the United States (25 October), Mexico (1 November) and São Paulo (8 November). Only after that is there a free weekend, before Las Vegas.
Verstappen announced it himself. “It is going to be a busy seven weeks, but I will enjoy it,” he said when SRO confirmed his entry. “I love the track and being in Portugal, so we will try to have a good weekend.”
A hundred karts on a Wednesday
The seven weekends do not even include everything. On Wednesday 16 September, between the Spanish Grand Prix and Baku, Verstappen started 101st in a kart at Silverstone and had thirty laps to pass a hundred amateurs. He needed fifteen. He cleared 64 of them on the opening lap alone.
Even then he made clear where his heart lies. Asked before the event whether he missed karting, he said: “I don’t miss it. It’s very different in that sense. You can get arm pump and stuff in a shifter, and I just feel like I enjoy more just being on a big track with a GT car.”
The GT car he keeps coming back to
That GT car has become his second programme. In May he raced the Nürburgring 24 Hours in a Mercedes-AMG GT3 with Jules Gounon, Dani Juncadella and Lucas Auer, and the car was leading until a technical failure with around four hours to go, Speedcafe noted. His own team, Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing, has won a Sprint Cup race at Magny-Cours and finished on the podium at the Nürburgring this year.
From a Cayman GT4 to Portimão
None of this started with a big announcement. Verstappen worked his way up on the Nordschleife the way any amateur has to, with a permit first. In barely a year it has gone like this:
- 13 September 2025, NLS 7: he earns his DMSB Permit Nordschleife in a Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 CS, sharing with Chris Lulham. More on the permit here.
- 27 September 2025, NLS 9: his GT3 race debut, and he wins it. Verstappen and Lulham take the four-hour race in a Ferrari 296 GT3 run by Emil Frey Racing, the series and formula1.com reported.
- 21 March 2026, NLS 2: now in his own team’s Mercedes-AMG GT3, with Dani Juncadella and Jules Gounon, he starts from pole and is first across the line. The car was disqualified afterwards, the NLS announced.
- May 2026, Nürburgring 24 Hours: the race he called a bucket-list item. His Mercedes-AMG leads until a technical failure with around four hours to go.
- 16 September 2026, Max vs 100: a hundred karts at Silverstone on a Wednesday evening.
- 17 October 2026, Portimão: his GT World Challenge Europe debut, in the middle of seven race weekends in a row.
All of it comes on top of a full Formula 1 season.
At Portimão he shares the number 3 with Chris Lulham and Ben Barnicoat in a field that SRO says has more than 70 Platinum and Gold drivers. One of them is Valentino Rossi in the number 46 Team WRT BMW, in the same Pro class. The full field is in our Portimão entry list, and the line-up story is in our announcement piece.
Our read: a pure racer
This is our view, not his. What makes Verstappen unusual is not that he races outside Formula 1; others have done that. It is that he seems to need it. A Grand Prix weekend gives a driver perhaps three hours of real driving. Verstappen fills the gaps with more: a kart race on a Wednesday, a 24-hour race in May, a GT3 debut in a seven-week block with a title fight still mathematically alive. Every extra lap in a different car, on a different tyre, in traffic he does not control, is another lesson in reading a race. That habit of treating every free day as track time is, in our view, a large part of why he is so good in the one car that matters most to him.
It also tells you what Portimão is to him. Not a promotional appearance, but three hours of racing against some of the best GT drivers in the world, in a car his own team has made a winner.
When to watch
Qualifying is on Friday 16 October at 18:55 Dutch time. The three-hour race starts on Saturday 17 October at 18:00 Dutch time (17:00 local). Both are free to watch on the GT World YouTube channel.
Is racing every weekend Verstappen’s secret, or is he asking too much of himself before the title run-in? Tell us in the comments.
