The brilliance of F1's fledgling phenomenon

They say records are there to be broken. On Sunday Max Verstappen didn't just break a record, he absolutely obliterated it.

Victory in the Spanish Grand Prix made him Formula 1's youngest-ever race winner at 18 years and 227 days, beating the previous record held by Sebastian Vettel by more than two-and-a-half years.

Given the FIA's move to introduce a new minimum age of 18 to race in F1, in the wake of Verstappen signing a deal as a 16-year-old Formula 3 rookie to race for Toro Rosso, there's a good chance this new record will never be broken.

It also suggests the FIA may have been hasty in creating such a rule, so impressive have been Verstappen's performances since he joined the fray at the start of last year.

What really stood out in Spain was how calm and confident Verstappen was all weekend. He's used to the attention, having caused a storm when he made his debut at 17. As many liked to point out, he could not legally drive a road car until last September. And he's also the son of a former F1 driver.

But it has not fazed him. Nothing seems to.

Even by the standards of Verstappen's career trajectory, the Spanish GP was a particularly challenging prospect.

Swapping teams mid-season cannot be easy. With next-to-no testing, Verstappen had a small amount of time in the Red Bull simulator and then was left to climb into a front-running car and get on with it.

Alongside him in the garage was Daniel Ricciardo, a proven race winner who many have tipped as a future world champion and has comfortably outperformed Daniil Kvyat in the first few races of 2016.

There was also pressure from above, after Red Bull bosses took the gamble to swap Verstappen with Kvyat and see if he would sink or swim. Fail, and Kvyat's situation was an example of what could happen.

Clearly, it was a gamble that paid off. Verstappen was straight to work with the guys at the factory, settling in incredibly quickly. At no point did he look overcome by the situation.

When he joined F1 last year he was quiet, timid even. But after a few races he relaxed into it and has never looked back, doing his talking both on and off the track. He got on immensely well with the people he worked with at Toro Rosso and it looks like so far - though it is early days - the same can be said at Red Bull.

On track in Spain, he didn't put a foot wrong. When he got behind the wheel of the Red Bull for the first time on Friday, he banged in a brilliant 1m27.5s on his first timed lap. At the session's end, he was just a tenth shy of Ricciardo. In qualifying, he was 0.4s adrift of Ricciardo, but that was more down to the fact that his team-mate's lap was inch-perfect.

Fourth on the grid was strong, and naturally his best qualifying position in F1 so far, but still Verstappen remained unperturbed by the achievement.

He wanted more. Come race day, he got it.

On the grid, he looked more excited than nervous. He wasn't bothered by the number of interviews he had to do or the semicircle of snappers that engulfed him as he went about his final preparations.

There were elements of good fortune in the race, with the two Mercedes taking each other out, followed by Red Bull's decision to put him on a two-stopper and Ricciardo a three.

But he still had to take the opportunity, not make any mistakes and manage 32 laps on the medium tyre, which made for conditions he likened to "driving on ice". He did all that while having the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen heaping pressure on him in arguably the quicker car.

He didn't lock a brake or run too deep in a corner to give Raikkonen a chance, and he consistently got the perfect exit out of the final chicane to give him 0.7 seconds on the Ferrari as he crossed the start-finish line. That was just enough to prevent Raikkonen getting close enough to overtake into Turn 1.

Verstappen's boss Christian Horner was particularly impressed with how he dealt with the pressure.

"He has a lot of capacity when he's driving the car," he says. "We're all getting tense with five laps to go because the tyres were at the end of their life, he has Kimi breathing down his neck. He just very calmly came on the radio and said, 'Please can you ask Charlie [Whiting] to deal with the blue flags swiftly'.

"There was no agitation in his voice, no panic, no tension. It was a young man who was completely in control of what he's doing. That's what he's done since the moment he stepped into the car."

That is quite an achievement for a driver making his debut with a new team - a top team, no less - and at just 18 years old. It proves he has the nerve of a champion.

The result not only justified Red Bull's decision to swap their drivers, ending the team's win drought that stretched back to the 2014 Belgian Grand Prix, but confirmed its belief that it needs to hold on to the Dutchman for the long-term.

Horner said it was "uncanny" how much Verstappen reminded him of Vettel. "There are an awful lot of similarities to when Sebastian joined the team," said Horner.

"The mechanics were telling me even the way he gets in the car is similar, from the same side, the way he pulls his knee up to get into the chassis and so on. There are some similarities there, but I think he's his own man as well. He's a very together young guy."

There were also shades of Michael Schumacher, who won his first race on his 18th start compared to the 24th for Verstappen, particularly in the way he conducts himself. That was in evidence post-race.

There was ecstasy in the moments after he won, but he quickly reined himself in and gave thoughtful interviews to the world's media. He credited the support and hard work of his father, his team and those who've helped him get to where he is.

You then got the sense that he was already thinking about how to get the next win, as all champions do.

He's got the taste for it now. It will be tough this season, given Mercedes' level of performance. But he's only 18, nearly half the age of the oldest man on the grid (Raikkonen), so time is certainly on his side.

Four years ago Pastor Maldonado defied expectation at Barcelona to take his first race win, but the Venezuelan failed to build on that and has bowed out of F1 with little more added to his CV. It is unthinkable that Verstappen will go the same way.

In fact, on the evidence so far, it seems only a matter of time before the youngest race winner in F1 history becomes the youngest world champion, too.