As Max Verstappen overtook Charles Leclerc at the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix, he received a five-second penalty for allegedly clashing with and forcing Leclerc off the track . When notified by his team, Max responded:
“Yeah, that’s fine. Send them my regards.”
Unfazed by this penalty, Max Verstappen went on to win the race and the 2023 Formula 1 championship with a record-breaking 19 Grand Prix victories. There is no doubt that the 27 year-old Dutch driver possesses the killer mindset of a champion — a mentality instilled by his father, Jos Verstappen, as he learned to drive.
Max Verstappen was born to be a driver. His father, Jos Verstappen, competed in Formula 1 from 1994 to 2003, while his mother, Sophie Kumpen, was a karting phenom who raced in the Karting World Championship multiple times.
At the age of four, Max Verstappen was already behind the wheel and by the time he was seven, he was competing in championships. He was mentored by his father, who believed in tough love and used harsh, often brutal methods to push him towards one goal: Formula 1.
For example, after falling short at a race in Italy, Jos Verstappen became furious with his son and they had an argument on the 17-hour car ride back home. Soon enough, Jos Verstappen became so fed up that he pulled over at a gas station and told his son: “Get out. Get out and I do not want to hear you anymore.” Max Verstappen was forced to call his mother to pick him up and his father did not speak to him for a week.
When Max Verstappen was nine years old, he was forced to train at the go-kart track in the wintertime. On one particular day, it was so cold that he could neither move his fingers nor hold the steering wheel. He told his father that he was freezing cold and received back: “I don’t care, drive.” As the boy was forced to keep driving, his fingers began to heat up which was extremely painful. After complaining to his father, he got back a curt response: “Ah, shut up.”
There were also instances where Jos Verstappen physically abused his son. During a karting championship when Max Verstappen was performing poorly, his father pulled him into the pit stop, hit him hard on the helmet and yelled at him. Reflecting on the moment, Jos Verstappen said, “I called him in. I was always on the track. So he came back, I really smashed him on his helmet. Bang!”
Incidents like these were part of his father’s philosophy in developing an obsessive and relentless drive within Max Verstappen. The intent was always to shape him into the best driver in the world and although his father’s methods were unusual, they were effective as they produced the most daring and merciless competitor on the Formula 1 track.
Max Verstappen has mentioned that his father never told him he was going to be great. In fact, his father would tell him that he would never make it and would end up driving buses or trucks. Max Verstappen has said that when his father would tell him these types of things, it “always motivated me to show my father that I could do it and that I was fast enough.” By placing his son through emotional and physical distress, Jos Verstappen lit a fire under his son that pushed him tirelessly to become the best driver possible.
Nonetheless, it certainly came at a cost. Max Verstappen essentially had no real childhood: “I really had to give it all while other kids were playing,” he said. “Sometimes, I would have liked to play football on Saturdays, you know?” While growing up, he did not get to enjoy the same experiences as most kids; rather, he was forced to train as much as possible and devote all his time to racing.
Still, Max Verstappen has revealed that he is grateful for his father’s tough-love approach. After clinching his fourth Formula 1 championship, he said “I needed to be pushed when I was a kid, and my dad definitely did that. I’m very happy that he did because it made me the driver that I am today.”
Max Verstappen is now competing in his 11th season in Formula 1 and is fighting for his fifth championship. Whether or not Jos Verstappen’s parenting style was morally and ethically acceptable, it is without a doubt that he transformed his boy into one of the greats.
