New book review: Unstoppable The Ultimate Biography of Max Verstappen by Mark Hughes

By chalking up another 2023 race victory in Sao Paulo, Max Verstappen appears to be effortlessly and clinically breaking past F1 records that now move him into the elite class of F1 drivers. Back in June, I reviewed James Gray’s biography “Max Verstappen“. Now, F1 journalist Mark Hughes has released another biography of the triple world champion, “Unstoppable“.

This latest biography is published in paperpack format at over 300 pages divided into a foreword and 9 chapters. Monaco is the opening chapter and for various reasons during Max’s career, Monaco has defined some key events during his career including outstanding laps, crashes and victories (think 2015, 2016, 2018, 2021 and 2022). The second chapter inevitably looks at Jos and his tough love grooming of Max. The next chapters cover his spectacular rise in karting, F3 career, being courted by Mercedes and Helmut Marko then fast tracked into F1. These chapters are good reading for those people not familiar with Max’s early career.

The second half of the book covers his Toro Rosso drives, swap up to the main Red Bull team with his immediate F1 victory, developing ascendancy against Danny Ric and finally getting the very pointy car & Honda engine combination to match his extreme car control to fight the dominant Mercedes and Lewis pairing in 2020 & 2021.

One obvious omission in this book is the absence of any photography (other than the front and back covers). Not sure if this was due to licensing fees but a biography without any photos at all tends to feel a little short.

Comparing James Gray’s biography to Mark Hughes’ book, you could say that James Gray focuses a lot more on the ‘nasty’ media stories around Jos background and Max’s early upbringing and family relatives. Gray’s book also is very light on the races in last few F1 seasons of 2021 & 2022 (as it just tacks on minor content with each additional edition).

Mark Hughes’ ‘Unstoppable‘ is probably a more neutral and technically focussed book admiring Max’s precocious driving and mental maturity and provides a very even chronological coverage of Max’s career from karting right through to 2023 Miami GP earlier this year.  As an author, Mark Hughes provides more of a technical appreciation of Max’s driving style, development and unique mental fortitude. Also contributing to the book’s content are interview quotes from key Verstappen associates like former Dutch F1 driver Giedo van der Garde, Helmut Marko and Christian Horner.

In many ways, they are quite different books.

If you enjoy reading Mark Hughes’ articles on Motorsport Magazine and The-Race.com, this new Max biography is really just a longer extension of that writing style in a book that will take a couple of reading sessions.

If you’re a Max fan or enjoy reading some of the behind the scenes stories at Toro Rosso and Red Bull Racing, then you will mostly enjoy this book. For hardcore Max fans, it’s possible you may have read or seen a good chunk of this material already in online publications.

Wow Factor/Money shot: behind the scenes Monaco 2022

Suitable for: Max and Red Bull/Toro Rosso fans

[Ed note: As this book has no illustrations, it’s been given 0 stars for visuals – unfortunately the site algorithm takes this into account when generating the overall total score stars rating.]