Serage Takes on Max Verstappen in Race Mode Challenge
The first time Serage hit “Race Mode” on TikTok, she was just another car-mad creator filming “silly videos” in Auckland. Now she’s packing a helmet for Silverstone and preparing to stare down Max Verstappen in her mirrors.
One of her dreams was simply to meet him. Instead, she’s been thrown into a race designed around stopping him.
The 30-year-old has been chosen by Red Bull as the sole New Zealand representative in a 100-strong field of creators, athletes, celebrities and fans, all tasked with one mission: do everything they can to prevent the four-time Formula One world champion from winning. Disney+ will broadcast the event on September 16, a sign this is far more than a light-hearted fan experience.
For Serage, it’s a surreal payoff from years of online graft.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think ‘Race Mode’ and all my silly car videos would get me in front of Max,” she said. “To see him talking and inviting me? I’m going to keep that video forever.”
The scale of the challenge is obvious. Verstappen is 28, already one of the sport’s all-time greats, with 71 grand prix victories and 131 podiums across 12 seasons, and a contract with Red Bull that runs until the end of 2030. Against a grid of non-professional drivers, logic says he should carve through the pack.
Serage has no intention of making it easy.
Her plan is simple: qualify as high as possible, cling to the racing line, and turn her brief time ahead of Verstappen into a genuine contest.
“There’s qualifying, so my goal is to make it as far as I can in that,” she said. “When he does come up – which he will, he’s Max Verstappen – I’m going to try and have a little battle to keep on the driving line and see what I can do. I do think he’ll overtake me, that’s inevitable, but I definitely want to have a fun interaction with him.”
From go-karts to Grand Prix legends
With less than three weeks until lights out in mid-September, Serage has thrown herself into preparation. No shortcuts, no coasting on the novelty factor.
Her first stop: Game Over in East Auckland, an indoor track where she climbed into an electric go-kart for a crash course in race craft before graduating to the real machinery in the UK.
This wasn’t a casual spin. Her instructor was Daniel Gaunt, a two-time New Zealand Grand Prix winner, former Toyota Racing Series champion and Supercars driver, who owns and operates the venue. She has also leaned on advice from Kiwi drifting star Mad Mike.
“I felt good, Dan from Game Over was giving me tips,” she said after that opening session. “We did some great laps, I was following behind him and learning apexes. I feel more pumped-up and more ready than ever.”
The jump from electric karts to petrol-powered race cars will be significant, but she welcomes it.
“Electric cars are faster than petrol ones, [but] once I feel the petrol ones, I think I’ll be quite ready.”
Away from the track, she has turned her home into a mini race lab. A simulator is already locked onto Silverstone, allowing her to learn every braking point and blind crest before she even boards the plane.
“I’ve done a little bit of preparation. We have a simulator that I’ve set up for Silverstone. That’s going to help me prepare, knowing what I’m looking at when I get there. I’ve never been to Silverstone before, this is my first long-haul flight ever.”
The contrast is striking: Verstappen, the master of Formula One’s most iconic circuits; Serage, a first-time visitor to the sport’s spiritual home, learning the track from a screen in Auckland.
Keeping Max in the mirrors
On paper, this race should be a procession for Verstappen. A field of influencers and enthusiasts trying to hold off a generational talent who does this for a living, every week, at terrifying speeds.
Serage understands the gulf. She isn’t pretending she’ll beat him. Her ambition is more grounded, and perhaps more compelling: start high, stay composed, and make Verstappen work for every inch.
As the sole New Zealander in the line-up, she will carry that flag alone on the grid, though she will have some familiar company off it. New Zealand-born, Australian-based TikTok creator Nathan Lust is also involved in the event, adding an Antipodean edge to the creator contingent.
The nerves are there. So is the excitement. Her brain, she admits, is “a bit all over the show” as the reality of the challenge sinks in. But she insists she’s ready.
Ready for Silverstone. Ready for the cameras. Ready for the moment when the Red Bull star looms large in her mirrors and the online dream collides with one of the fastest men on earth.
When that happens, the stopwatch won’t tell the whole story. The real question is simple: how long can she keep Max Verstappen behind her?
