Red Bull Holland road trip: through his homeland with Max Verstappen

E s would have been the highlight of this year's Grand Prix -Calendar should be: The return of Formula 1 to the Netherlands. For the first time since 1985 a Grand Prix in Zandvoort. The operators renovated the traditional route for this purpose. Max Verstappen was her workhorse. A million racing fans wanted a ticket. Over 100,000 received one.

But nothing came of it. The Covid-19 pandemic prevented the race. Formula 1 stands still instead of entertaining the fans. Well, not exactly.

Red Bull

Albon and Verstappen chug past windmills in their V8 racing cars.

Start in Rotterdam

Because Red Bull had already started the big advertising machine for the GP Netherlands. An elaborate film about the race was produced. Although that did not take place as planned, Red Bull has now published the work anyway. The production dragged on for a total of eight months. 80 people participated. They collected 80 terabytes of raw material and took over 8,000 photos. Post-processing alone took almost 70 days. But the effort was worth it.

The result is a road trip that takes Max Verstappen and Alexander Albon through the Netherlands. The local hero shows the Thai the sights of his homeland. Their vehicles: the Red Bull RB7 from 2011, with which Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber won 12 of the 19 Grand Prix. And the RB8 from 2012, which was the winning car in seven races. Sebastian Vettel won the world championship title and Red Bull the constructors' cup with both cars.

The two Red Bull drivers start their journey at the port of Rotterdam, the largest deep-water port in Europe. Here are about 8.7 millionContainer shipped a year. On the docks, the pilots heat around cranes and containers - and leave their marks on the slippery asphalt.

Red Bull

Verstappen carefully moves his racing car through a greenhouse past flowers.

Motocross bike jumps over F1 car

In total, Verstappen and Albon go to ten locations, the Netherlands make his way special. What shouldn't be missing are narrow country roads, on which the Formula 1 racing cars just fit. Windmills, of which there are over 1,000 in the Netherlands. And greenhouses where the Dutch grow their flowers. More than 12 billion are traded annually. Before Corona, of course.

Verstappen and Albon even drive their cars through a greenhouse without damaging the flowers. At a snail's pace, of course. They do not always have a clear ride on the country roads either. The Red Bull drivers sometimes have to queue behind a truck. The road is too narrow for the Formula 1 car to overtake. And the truck driver doesn't let the noisy, 2.4-liter naturally aspirated V8s bother him. There is only one shortcut to help.

The Dutch love their bikes. The pilots feel this in The Hague. The Red Bulls roll over cobblestones on rain tires and have to chug behind the two-wheelers. The scenes were shot in January in freezing cold and before the outbreak of the corona pandemic.

Zandvoort is located by the sea. A detour to the beach is obvious. Verstappen and Albon let the rear tires spin in the sand, while motocross driver Jeffrey Herlings uses a dune to jump over the Formula 1 cars. Worth seeing pictures and recordings that were taken with camera cars, drones and GoPros, and that we do not want to withhold from you.