Max Verstappen does not want to miss his daughter growing up by racing for too long in Formula 1, a paddock he thinks now resembles a zoo due to the amount of guests and VIPs every weekend.
Verstappen, who turned 29 last month, recently signed a Red Bull contract extension through to the 2030 season.
It ended almost two years of speculation over either a move to Mercedes or retirement altogether.
“I was really on the brink,” the four-time world champion told Dutch outlet De Telegraaf this week.
“Especially in the first weekends of this season. I never had a feeling like that before.”
Verstappen has been an outspoken critic of F1’s loathed new V6 turbo hybrid engines.
He’s also had another reason to contemplate his future -- his daughter Lily was born in 2024 and he said its become harder and harder to travel to Formula 1 races since.
He has often said he cannot see himself racing too long into his thirties.
“I can already see that my daughter is starting to notice when I leave,” he said. “So even now, I try to do that when she doesn’t realize it. That will also be a consideration later on when it comes to my future. I don’t want to just be away all the time; I want to see my own children grow up. Because once they turn eighteen, there is a chance they will say ‘bye’ and slam the door behind them.”
Verstappen has become the face of modern F1 at a time when the sport’s popularity has reached unprecedented popularity worldwide.
Famously, he has found a lot of this irritating -- he refused to do much promo around F1’s blockbuster Hollywood movie and opted out of several seasons of the Netflix Drive to Survive series due to his disappointment in how he was being portrayed.
He admitted his status in the sport is a double-edged sword now there’s so many people getting paddock passes.
In the same interview, he said of the paddock: “It’s like a zoo. It is often no longer possible to have a chat with someone. That’s not really possible anymore. So I mainly live from my room to the garage and the pit lane.
“Even in our own hospitality rooms, there are many guests who want something from you. Of course they mean well, but I also need to be able to rest without being bothered all the time. I know it’s part of it. And that, the more you perform and the more you’ve achieved, the more people want you to be. In that respect, it is also a good thing.”
Verstappen is third on the all-time F1 winners’ list behind Michael Schumacher (91) and Lewis Hamilton (106).