Vorm on new Formula 1 season: ‘Since Verstappen started, I’m glued to every race!’

There’s international action going on across the globe this weekend but for our squad’s resident petrol head Michel Vorm, all eyes will be on Melbourne, Australia, for the start of the new Formula 1 season.

While many of our players enjoy watching other elite sports such as NFL or NBA during their down-time, for long-time car enthusiast Michel, it’s all about the thrills and spills of high-level motor racing.

Our 34-year-old goalkeeper is always glued to his television screen when the cars line up on the grid and the red lights go out, and has been lucky enough to visit the pit lane during the two most recent British Grands Prix at Silverstone, even meeting ace young driver and fellow Dutchman Max Verstappen last summer.

“I’ve followed the sport for a while now, but really when Max Verstappen joined Torro Rosso three years ago as the youngest Formula 1 driver ever, since then I’ve tried to watch every race,” said Michel, who made an outstanding double-save during our FA Cup quarter-final win at Swansea City in our last game before the international break.

“Obviously you had his father, Jos Verstappen, who raced a few years ago and at that time I followed it a bit as well, but not as intensely as I do now.

“I’ve always loved cars. When I was a kid, my father had a passion for them too. We didn’t have the finances to afford the cars that we liked but I always loved the Opel Vectra when I was small. In England they call it Vauxhall but in Europe it’s Opel. Finally we got one and at the time for us it was quite a big deal. The Omega as well – they were great cars.

“To follow F1 now, it’s different. For me, studying different sports has always been something interesting. Whether it’s NBA, tennis, boxing or whatever, it’s good to watch professional athletes on a certain level. For me, Formula 1 drivers are athletes as well because it’s such hard work, so intense. They do everything – it’s not like they sit in the seat and they just drive. They’ve been working towards where they are now since they were kids and it’s tough. You have to be lucky as well in terms of what team you are in because there are some very good drivers in the smaller teams, but it’s always interesting to see the youngsters coming through.

“Obviously Verstappen is now coming into his fourth season, but he’s still so young and he’s improving every time. Even the more experienced guys like Lewis Hamilton (pictured, above) – he’s unbelievable and of course you can say that he’s at Mercedes, but still every time people expect him to win. I just love how professional these people are, how they try to compete every time to be the best. It’s something different to football but in a way it’s similar.

“It’s great to watch and especially when you’re Dutch and your fellow Dutchman has the potential to be world champion, you can support that. I love cars and racing in general so for me, with Max being Dutch as well, it’s just one plus one.”

Humble beginnings

With his father interested in cars, it didn’t take long for a young Michel to follow suit while growing up in Holland. Ironically, it was when a future Arsenal player drove by that he began to take a serious interest.

“I’ll never forget – Glenn Helder, who played for Vitesse (Arnhem) at the time and went on to play for Arsenal for a bit – had the BMW 8 Series,” smiled Michel this week. “I didn’t really see many nice cars in person but when he came by near our house once, I saw his 8 Series and it was one of the nicest cars that I’d seen. I’ll never forget that. When I started to make my way through the first team at Utrecht, I got my first car and I was always interested. I’d try to spec up my cars differently to my other team-mates and since I’ve had my licence, I’ve been lucky enough to have quite a collection. Now we just have the two cars, my wife and I, but over the years I’ve been very lucky and I’m thankful for that.”

Safety first

Professional football is obviously his number one priority and dominates his daily life, but would Michel ever consider taking to the race track himself one day?

“No. I did a bit of go-karting when I was younger but always in the back of my mind I’m thinking of things like that to do after my career. I couldn’t do it now – you have to make sure you’re safe because if something happens – it can just be a little something – it can have an influence on your football career so in my mind, even though I love it, this is the kind of thing you couldn’t do until after you’ve stopped playing professionally. I’ve been a few times to F1 and it’s amazing to see what the cars can do, especially nowadays.”

Formula 1 so much more ‘open’ than football

Last summer at the British Grand Prix, Michel was lucky enough to go behind the scenes at Silverstone on race day, chatting to some of the drivers and getting the chance to see the cars at close quarters in the pit lane. However, he admits that it’s not always possible to provide that sort of experience to football supporters.

“I’ve been to Silverstone twice, last year and the year before, and that was something amazing,” he said. “To be there in the pits, it’s special. We had the whole package. We were with Red Bull last season and Force India the season before and to talk to the people who work there and see the whole circus behind it is unbelievable. In football, from the outside, people can’t really get in that close. You can’t go in the dressing room or these kinds of things but there in the pit, you can touch the cars. It’s so different in Formula 1 – it’s so much more open and free compared to football. The whole atmosphere is great and the people are so enthusiastic – you see maybe 100,000 people camping outside for the whole weekend. The atmosphere at a race is something you don’t get if you watch it on TV – you watch the race and that’s it, but there’s so much more over the whole weekend. I think it’s very special.”

‘Verstappen can set the tone straight away in 2018’

For racing fans, all roads now lead to Melbourne for the start of the 2018 Formula 1 season on Sunday morning. Michel will be watching – and he confirms he’s backing his fellow countryman to continue his progress on the track over the course of the next eight months.

“For me, as a Dutch guy, I just hope that Max can have a good season,” he said. “He has a huge amount of talent, he’s shown it already and he’s one of the best racers so I just hope that this season his team (Red Bull) really can compete with Ferrari and Mercedes. It will be tight until the end but it’s interesting to see, especially with the first race coming up in Melbourne. I think he can set the tone straight away if he can compete. Obviously the season is long but if you start well then you never know. Last season, it ended well but started poorly for his team, but if they want to compete, obviously they have to do better. I think they have the perfect pair with Daniel Ricciardo and Verstappen so I’m really looking forward to seeing how they can push Ferrari and Mercedes to maybe win the world title. At this stage it’s so hard to tell. It’s the same with football – you can beat all the big teams in pre-season but when the season starts, that’s where it’s supposed to happen. They’ve had their pre-season in Barcelona with the testing programme that they go through and things are looking very good, but you just don’t know until Sunday. From there on, it’s going to be interesting to see what’s going to happen.”