Nate Saunders Sep 16, 2026, 02:12 AM ET Ten seconds into the dress rehearsal for racing against Max Verstappen, the Go Pro attached to the front of my kart had already been knocked clean off. Up ahead, around and behind me, 49 other amateur racers were trying to squeeze through the first corner five abreast. Behind me was Formula 1 rookie and Red Bull junior Arvid Lindblad, playing the role of Verstappen for the afternoon's dress rehearsal and carving through the congestion at an alarming rate.

Somewhere in the middle of all that was me, discovering that the first objective in taking on one of the greatest racing drivers of his generation is considerably less ambitious than beating him. Objective one: Survive long enough for Verstappen to actually catch you at a meaningful moment, rather than just in a flash. On Wednesday, I will be one of 100 drivers attempting exactly that at Silverstone: Verstappen starts at the back and has 30 laps to pass 100 of us.

The slightly absurd event will be broadcast live globally on ESPN on Disney+ -- with build-up at 5 p.m. BST before the race begins at 6 p.m -- meaning there is an even more modest secondary ambition: remain in the contest long enough to make it onto television. Verstappen's race will take place on a mis-match of two different circuits: 1.3km of permanent karting track on the Silverstone infield, with another 1.15km of temporary track added specifically for this event. The rules for Lindblad's dress rehearsal were the same: start at the back, and once a driver is passed, they are eliminated.

Drivers were given a handy 'fast lap' -- think a shortcut -- at one stage, for the first 50 percent of the race, while Lindblad had use of the same opportunity for the second 50 percent of the race. The same rules will apply for Verstappen in Wednesday's longer, one-hour event. George Russell had jokingly suggested beforehand that the best defence might be to run four abreast and make Verstappen find a way through.

By Turn 1 of the morning rehearsal, that had become five abreast without anyone appearing to have planned it. Starting 36th, Turn 1 was a warzone, and the Go Pro was gone sooner than I could remember what any of the advice before had been. As it did go flying one way, there was a flash of white the other -- Lindblad, in his Racing Bulls gear, nimbly scything through the pack, inexplicably already some 10 or 15 places up, carving past karts which were spinning left, right and centre.

Barely 10 seconds had passed and ESPN's dress rehearsal was over, as was a good quarter of the field's. "You have to survive lap one," says David Terrien, the man who constructed the circuit for this event and will be race director. He's got a point: The 'fast lap' option only exists to drivers who make it round for one full lap, after all. Terrien, a former European and World karting champion, raced against both of Verstappen's parents, Jos Verstappen and Sophie Kumpen, when they were kids together.