A couple years ago, Trident Motorsport team manager and former racing star Giacomo Ricci was scouting new Formula 2 and 3 drivers when he heard about a late-blooming American kid named Max Esterson who drove like a seasoned speedster.
“In this sport, if you want to succeed at the top, you have to start at a super, super young age,” says Ricci. “There are some exceptions when a guy starts late. [Max] is naturally talented and so dedicated that he can catch up with the bunch. I don’t want to say it is easy, but by working extremely hard, they can get closer, and closer, and closer.”
Intrigued by what he had heard and read about Max, Ricci decided to see what this up-and-comer was made of. He arranged for Max to test drive a Formula 2 car, which is significantly faster and heavier than Formula 3 cars. Up until that point, Max had been racing Formula Fords and in the British GB3 Championship—a smaller car that is a stepping stone to Formula 3.
“It was funny, because after the first run, I remember Max jumped out of the car and said, ‘Oh, this car is very quick,’” Ricci recalls with a grin. “But I could see in his eyes that he was not someone who was scared or thinking he couldn’t manage the car. What impressed me about him that day was his progression. He didn’t know the track or the car, but by the end of the day he was up to speed.”
When Ricci needed a new driver for the final two races of the 2024 Formula 2 season, he immediately thought of Max and brought him over to the Trident team. Now the 22-year-old part-time Palm Beacher is in a prime position to race his way into one of the hardest and most competitive spots in sports—a coveted seat in Formula 1, which only rarely boasts American drivers. As tantalizing as that idea may be, Max recognizes that there are very real challenges ahead.
“You need everything to be working perfectly to win,” Max says. “You can perform your best and your engine might blow up with two laps to go, for example. So, it’s a challenging sport, because to succeed you need to be in the best car at the right time, under the right circumstances. Obviously, I’m super lucky to be doing this.”
A native of New York City, Max is the second of three sons born to former racecar engineer Robin Esterson, and his wife, Pam, who worked in finance before starting an executive search business. Max and his older brother, Hugh, graduated from Regis, an all-boys Catholic high school in Manhattan, which, Max jokes “sounds like a lot of fun.” The school was academically intensive, so there wasn’t much time for racing, and not many places to do it in the big city.
Even so, the sport began to capture Max’s imagination. Though Robin had since moved into a career in finance, Max says there was usually a race on television at home. When Max was 4 or 5, his father took him and Hugh to 24 Hours of Daytona, a sports car endurance race held annually at Daytona International Speedway. Max found the rumble of engines and blistering speed enthralling. He recalls wanting to race cars, but he wasn’t sure it was possible.
Then Hugh was given a Logitech G25 steering wheel and pedals for racing on PCs and PlayStations. Max, then age 11, fell in love with sim racing. He became so dedicated that he was eventually ranked as one of the top 35 iRacers in the world and fourth in the United States.
“I think the simulator sort of rewired his brain,” Robin says. “When you’re driving a racecar, you’re interpreting lots of data, processing it, analyzing it, and then deciding what to do with your feet on the gas or the brake and the steering. I think the simulators are so good that they refined Max’s ability.”
Many aspiring Formula 1 drivers don’t start on simulators, as Max did; they begin behind the wheel of a go-kart at the tender age of 5 or 6. By 2018, Max says his mother got so tired of the boys being inside iRacing, that she told them to find some kind of racing to do outside. Max and Hugh landed at a karting camp in upstate New York. Max was almost 16 years old at the time, technically a decade behind his racing peers. But for Max, his journey was not about how and when he started; it would become about how—and perhaps even where—he would finish.
“I did [karting] for fun, at first,” says Max. “But when I got behind the wheel of my first racecar a year later, that felt more natural to me, I think, because of the simulator.”
Max had only recently gotten his learner’s permit and barely learned to drive a manual transmission the week before he zipped around in a racecar for the first time in late 2019. The racing team owner who watched Max that day thought he should try his luck at Formula Ford racing and see where that led.
“When you look at Max, you think he’s nice and polite and thoughtful, but what you probably don’t see is that he can be so competitive and he has a fierceness most people don’t expect,” Robin says. “I don’t know how we got talked into letting him move to England by himself in 2021 and finish high school remotely so he could start training and racing there. But he let us know that this was going to happen, no matter what.”
In 2021, Max placed third in the British National Formula Ford Championship, second in the Formula Ford Festival, and won the Walter Hayes Trophy event at Silverstone. The following year, he became the first American driver to ever win the Formula Ford Festival. Good results led to Max’s foray into international racing with a spot in FIA Formula 3 in 2024 (with the smallest team on the grid, Jenzer Motorsport), where he remained until the Formula 2 opportunity with Trident surfaced at the end of the year. Ricci says that if Max can spend the 2025 season consistently racing at the front of the pack, he’ll be in a good position to grab an F1 spot, if one becomes available.
“Max is not some rich kid from America over in Europe whose dad is paying him to drive,” says Danny Sullivan, a family friend and former driver who won the Indianapolis 500 in 1985. “He’s proven himself. He’s winning races. He’s the real deal.”
With 20 F1 seats total, all of which are currently filled, being the real deal often isn’t enough. You can be committed to racing, constantly proving yourself on tracks all over the world, and able to secure the funding needed for race entry fees—and Formula 1 can remain out of reach.
“Up until this point, we’ve been fortunate that we’ve been able to commit to pay for it and then find sponsorships to fund [Max], because otherwise it would be a huge strain on the family,” Robin says. “It’s only been four years, but the price to do this keeps doubling every year. You’re in this world where everybody’s über, über rich, and so I would say this is a critical year for him to show success. He’s chosen a path where the competition is the toughest, the highest in the world.”
Max is undaunted by this but realistic, and he’s grateful for his parents’ continued support.
“I think they see that I’m working like crazy to make [continued success] happen,” he says, adding that he maintains a daily workout regimen and frequently karts at the AMR Homestead-Miami Motorplex several times a week to keep his skills sharp. Ricci and Sullivan say the sky’s the limit for him, especially now that Cadillac has been approved to launch an F1 team in 2026.
Though uncertainties abound, Max is rolling with it, one track at a time, armed with a determination to finish at the front of the pack.
Story Credits:
Shot on location at Miami International Autodrome, Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens
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