Formula 1 world champion Maxverstappen has been blatantly rejected for trying to rent a car during the holiday - for the reason of not being old enough.
The 26-year-old Dutch racer - who used to race at speeds of more than 200 mph - was not accepted when he wanted to sit in a Mercedes with a maximum speed of 195 mph.
An employee at car rental company Sixt said that allowingverstappen - who won his first Grand Prix at the age of 18 - to drive an AMG GT would violate the company's insurance policy because he was under 30 years old.
The Red Bull racer, who won his third consecutive F1 world championship this season, instead had to use a less powerful BMW 5 Series.
He flew to Algarve in Portugal with his family and friends on 3 private jets last Monday.
The group rented about 20 cars from Sixt at Faro airport and rented an Autodromo Internacional racetrack from Algarve for 2 days beforeverstappen flew to Brazil.
A source said: Max and his team went to Portugal to conduct a fun race and pre-ordered the cars they wanted.
When they arrived at the airport, Max was shocked to be told that he was not allowed to drive the Mercedes he wanted.
He is an experienced F1 racer, used to driving powerful cars, so it's surprising to think that he wasn't allowed to sit behind the wheel of this car - but that was the rule he followed.
verstappen, who reached a top speed of 213 mph on his RB19 F1, chose the Mercedes AMG GT, which can reach speeds of up to 195.7 mph.
The BMW he rented was then able to travel at speeds of up to 155.3 mph.
His manager, Raymond Vermeulen, was driving the Mercedes.
A Sixt spokesperson said: Our franchise partners staff in Portugal only follow the rules arising for insurance reasons.
To find a solution that is friendly to on-site customers,verstappen has been provided with another luxury car.
However, there may be special cases that can be implemented outside of regulations. This is such a case.
We apologize verstappen. He could rent the car he wanted from us at any time.
Of course, there is no doubt about his driving skills and experience with powerful cars.
In Augustverstappen seemed to have exceeded the speed limit when driving a £2.3 million Aston Martin Valkyrie supercar through a tunnel in France.
The Belgian-born racer has won 54 races and 98 times on the podium in his F1 career.
He joined Red Bull in 2016 and is said to have earned £43 million in this year alone.
verstappen started racing Karts at the age of 4 and competed in tournaments at the age of 7. His father, Jos, 51, was also an F1 driver.
