Max Verstappen's win at the Spanish Grand Prix sent shockwaves through the motorsport world -- even making MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi sit up and take notice.
Verstappen became F1's youngest winner in Barcelona at 18 years and 228 days, beating Sebastian Vettel's former record by almost three years. The win confirmed the Dutchman's huge potential and has led to many tipping him for great things in future now he has moved up to an increasingly-competitive Red Bull outfit.
The win vindicated the hype around the young teenager, with Red Bull's Helmut Marko once likening his prodigy to Ayrton Senna, the man many believe to be the greatest in F1's history. The rider who holds that distinction in motorbike's premier category is Rossi, a man used to breaking a record or two with seven MotoGP championships and 112 wins in his motorbike career, second in the all-time list.
After seeing Verstappen rewrite F1's record books Rossi tipped his cap to the Dutch teenager via social media.
The debut of @Max33Verstappen was not too bad 🙆🏻🙆🏻🙆🏻#history
— Valentino Rossi (@ValeYellow46) May 15, 2016
Verstappen has four more years to beat The Doctor's achievement of winning his first world title at the age of 22. The Formula One distinction for youngest champion is even further down the road, with Vettel claiming his maiden 2010 crown aged 23 years, 134 days. Lewis Hamilton remains the youngest man to have led a world championship at 22 years, 126 days, which he did during his debut season, 2007.