Verstappen stopped by Nike. He will not be able to use the word “Max” for his clothing line – Corriere.it

No one stops him on the track apart from breakdowns and his partner Sergio Perez. Verstappen will race the Australian GP in Melbourne this weekend in search of the second victory of the season after the one in Bahrain, which he missed in Jeddah due to a broken axle shaft which forced him to start fifteenth (he finished second anyway). The setback instead came on the commercial front, also in this respect Max is an absolute phenomenon: he puts his face and name everywhere in Holland thanks to his popularity, he was testimonial of the Jumbo supermarkets which at the Zandvoort Gp distributed orange cloaks with the lion.

In addition to organized travel agencies for fans (L’orange army), Verstappen has long since launched himself into fashion with dedicated clothing lines. But with the last one he would have dared too much, receiving a stop from Nike. Because according to what was revealed by De Limburger, the Red Bull driver will not be able to use the name Max 1 for some new products. In fact, the acronym was considered too similar to that of the legendary Air Max shoes, born at the time of Michael Jordan.

The American multinational would have immediately moved with lawyers to protect intellectual property by contacting the Benelux patent office and the first opinion was in favor of Nike. too much similarity between the two brands, in a commercial context there is a risk of confusion, with “Max1” one could believe that it is a sub-brand of “Air Max”.

It won’t be a problem for the Dutchman who receives almost 55 million dollars a year (gross) from Red Bull and has a contract until 2028. With Hamilton the challenge is now off the track, who earns the most. Curiously, even the seven-time Mercedes world champion was stopped in court a few years ago when he tried to register his surname as a trademark. The Hamilton watch brand of the same name, founded in 1892 in the USA, blocked it.