Max tries Kendo: “It looks good and I liked it”

Published on 04 October 2017 by Niels Hendrix

Just before Red Bull Racing headed for Suzuka, they brought Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo to the Konnou Dojo in Shibuya for a training session in the 300-year-old martial art of Kendo. That's the really cool one with the masks and body armour and the massive bamboo swords.

After getting kitted out in their uniforms, which as well as the jacket and trousers, consisted of Bōgu, or armour, part of which is a series of heavy cloth panels called Tare, which are tied around the waist. Naturally, these were Red Bull Racing branded.

With the equipment sorted, the boys first watched a demonstration by students of the dojo and afterwards began their training session with the kendo sticks, under the watchful eye of Kendo master, Eguchi.

The session involved learning how to do several key moves, including smashing balloons fixed to the mask of an opponent. Daniel, particularly, took this pretty seriously and his lightning quick series of offensive moves earned him a solid round of applause from those watching.

Max also got into the spirit of it, saying: "It's the first time I've seen it, so it's new to me. There's quite a bit of screaming involved. It looks good and I liked it. Yeah, if someone doesn't behave you can punish them!"

Max heads to Suzuka off the back of a superb victory in Sepang and the Dutchman is keen to carry that momentum forward at a track that has special memories. "It's where I did my first Friday practice ever in an F1 car and it's just an amazing track to drive, because the first sector is very fast," he said. "It's really old school, so you can't make big mistakes because you will end up in the gravel and that's not what you want, so I'm definitely looking forward to the weekend again. Hopefully we can fight for a podium again - that would be really good."