Jos Verstappen has admitted he was ‘tough’ on Max on the journey to F1 (Image: Mark Thompson/Getty Images)
has opened up about a fiery clash with his father, Jos, who faced accusations of ‘abusing’ his son on the road to fame. Jos Verstappen, once team-mate in his own racing days, was pivotal in moulding Max into the champion he is today.
After adopting a ‘tough love’ strategy with his karting prodigy son, their relationship saw some “heated” moments as Max rose through the ranks, though his dad vehemently denies any ‘abuse’ accusations. One notorious incident saw Max left at a petrol station after a rash move cost him a world championship during a kart race in Italy.
“That was the first opportunity for me to win the World Championship,” Max recalled in Viaplay’s : Anatomy of a Champion documentary, which is available to watch on Amazon Prime from Monday. “I stayed in the lead at the start but then I got passed. I was so upset that I tried to pass the guy back in a place that was unnecessary [and spun off].
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“My dad was just so upset with me, doing that stupid move. I basically threw everything away. Of course, I was very sad and upset with myself for making that mistake.
“I then started to try to talk to him in the van, travelling home for 17 hours. He didn’t want to talk to me. He was just so fed up with it. He’s like, ‘Get out’. He stopped at the fuel station and he’s like, ‘You get out’. And he drove off.”
Max opened up about the gruelling nature of his early career, travelling across Europe with his father. He reflected: “The travelling, going all over the place, was just so intense. I was a bit like, ‘Why does it need to be like this?
“My dad, it didn’t matter if it was cold, warm, dry, wet, he was out there [saying] like, ‘Every lap you make a mistake in that corner, you’re not doing it right’, these kind of things. Always constantly trying to improve me, you know? And sometimes it got a bit heated.”
Jos Verstappen has been integral to Max’s success (Image: Getty)
Jos features in the documentary and defended his hard-line approach, denying any ‘abuse’ towards Max. He explained: “People say how bad a father I was to him, to abuse your child.
“I never abused him, I was teaching him. I was hard on him and that was also the plan [for him], to learn, to think. A lot of people have no idea what you have to do to arrive to the top of a sport.”
Raymond Vermeulen, Max’s manager, acknowledged Jos’s tough methods but insisted they were well-meaning. He said in the documentary: “Sometimes I said, ‘Jos, you’re from a different planet’. He said, ‘I know but we have to do it like this to be successful. End of story’.
“I think Jos did everything with the right intention because he knew that Max was very gifted. He did it with all the love and all the passion. And he knew that route to success was a hard route.”
: Anatomy of a Champion is available to stream on Viaplay via Amazon Prime from 25 Nov