Max Verstappen 'acted on instinct' to survive 100 karters 'chaos'

Max Verstappen has explained how he acted "on instinct" to survive the "chaos" of the opening laps of Max vs 100 at Silverstone.

On Wednesday, the four-time F1 drivers' champion started 101st in a special Red Bull event at the home of the British GP - and 35 minutes later, had passed all 100 to pull off the win. 

At the start, chaos erupted at Turn 1 with the field all bunching up as Verstappen was forced to take to the run-off before slowly picking off the runners to leave himself with three drivers to go, including a Dutch F1 journalist Jacky Martens and a member of his Red Bull team, Louis Osler.

After some bumper cars, Verstappen emerged victorious, and spoke of how respectful the 100 karters had been towards him.

"You just act on instinct to whatever happens, right?" Verstappen explained to invited media, including RacingNews365.

"When the lights go out, you just see where the gaps are, and then you also need to trust a few people around you that they don't do anything crazy, and I mean, to be honest, they didn't. 

"They were very excited with each other, but they were actually quite nice to me, to not, like, crash to me or whatever. But you just act really quickly when you just see everything unfold in front of you. 

"The first half [of the race] is just chaos, so you just want to survive, and then after that, you're just hunting them down. 

"So it is quite nice where you just have to put the laps in yourself and catch them one-by-one. 

"At one point, I said before the race, 'let's be bold and say that I would pass 40 people on Lap 1,' and then they told me it was 61 I think. 

"So it was a good effort, and I just had to stay out of trouble. Some people got really excited and there was a bit of a roadblock going on, but I managed to swerve around it."

The article continues below. 

Verstappen pulls off 100 karters challenge

When then asked by RacingNews365 what he thought was realistic coming into the race and if he believed the win was possible, Verstappen indicated that he felt it was all along. 

"Well, I knew my lap times when I did the prep laps, and I knew the qualifying lap times of the others, so I knew the win was possible," he said.

"But it really depended on my first two laps, and they went better than expected, so that helped a lot."