Words: Harry Shukman
The combined brainpower of every psychiatric expert in Broadmoor could not discern the motivations behind the success of Formula One’s notoriously aloof Max Verstappen, but it seems like a safe bet to consider the influence of his father — who, it must be said, would likely benefit from a spell in that very same high-security hospital. The Dutch point machine was at 17 the youngest ever driver to compete in F1, and having won the world championship twice he is now one of the most fearsome racers on the grid today. So what makes him tick?
There can be few professional drivers whose success was not due, in some part, to having headcase parents who bundled their tearful children behind the wheels of a go-kart, and yet Verstappen’s father Jos seems to be an extreme example. Verstappen is on the record telling interviewers that growing up, his dad, a former F1 driver, was “harsh”, frequently telling his son that he was a “disappointment”. “My dad never said I was gonna be a champion,” Verstappen once told David Coulthard. “He was always the opposite, he’d tell me I was gonna be a truck driver or like a bus driver. He was always, in a good way I think, making me realise that what I was doing at the time was not enough.” How lovely!
In one bleak joint interview Jos recounts a story of making the child Max go-kart on a freezing winter’s day. “He couldn’t move his fingers,” laughs Jos in the clip. “I didn’t care. I wanted to move forward. He was saying, ‘I’m cold’.” Jos fondly recalls Verstappen complaining that his fingers became “very painful” and were unable to grip the steering wheel, to which his lovely father responded: “Shut up”. Protective equipment, Jos later snarled at his son, was nothing but “pussy pads”.
Max Verstappen racing for Red Bull
Another controversial story, according to Max, involved Jos abandoning his 15-year-old son by the road in Italy as a punishment for a poor performance in a world championship karting race. Verstappen told a reporter at ESPN that his dad was incensed at his loss. “When we sat in the van, I wanted to talk to my dad about the incident,” he recalled. “My dad said, ‘Stop talking, I don’t want to hear anything, just sit in the back, I don’t want to hear anything about it’.” Max persisted, at which point Jos pulled over to a petrol station and said: “Get out. Get out and I do not want to hear you anymore.” He had to phone his mum to ask for a lift.
Jos — who along with his father Frans were both given a five-year suspended jail sentence for fracturing a man’s skull — denies abusing young Max, saying he was merely teaching him how to be a winner. “I raised him, I was hard on him,” Jos has said. “That was my plan.”
Has Jos’s cruel streak rubbed off on Max? It would appear so. The younger Verstappen has a potty mouth — he once joked that the best purchase he ever made was “my girlfriend”. The aggro has extended to the track. Verstappen’s rivalry with everyone in racing — even with his own teammates — is legendary. But the biggest anger is reserved for the seven-time world champ Lewis Hamilton. During a practice session in 2021, he famously called Hamilton a “stupid idiot” and flipped him the middle finger. He ranted to his team that same year about the safety car, and back in 2018 when he suffered engine trouble yelled: “Mate, really? Can I not just keep going? I don’t care if this fucking engine blows up. What a fucking joke. All the fucking time. This is shit honestly.”
Verstappen takes after his father in other ways too. Dominant on the grid, even among his own teammates, he is famous for winning at all costs — even if that means risking his life in the process.
The aftermath of Verstappen’s crash after making contact with Hamilton at Silverstone in 2021
At Silverstone during the British Grand Prix, Verstappen crashed into Hamilton in a now-notorious incident. What exactly happened to some extent depends on which driver you support, however Verstappen and Hamilton made contact on a rightward turn and the Dutchman’s car skidded into the rails at 180 mph, or with 51Gs of force. Verstappen, who was taken to hospital and declared OK, recovered to begin a fierce feud with Hamilton. They collided again that year in Monza, where both their cars were taken out of the race. In Brazil, Verstappen forced Hamilton off the tarmac. In Saudi Arabia, he brake checked Hamilton and was penalised. And so it goes.
It says a lot that the way Max relaxes after a hard day of racing isn’t by taking a leaf out of Stirling Moss’s book by “chasing crumpet”, as the late racer so eloquently put it, but by gaming. Max has a videogame dungeon, and spent 14 hours with an Xbox controller in his hand after a recent grand prix. What was he playing? Fifa. Anyone that competitive has a long career ahead of them. “Talent of the century,” Niki Lauder has said of Verstappen. If that’s the cost of success, perhaps mediocrity doesn’t seem so bad.
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