Max Verstappen may snub dad’s races as Jos returns to track aged 51
Max Verstappen wins third consecutive Formula One world championship
Max Verstappen has admitted he will “think carefully” about cheering his father Jos on when he competes in rallying events. Verstappen Jnr was in fine form on the F1 track once again this year as he claimed his third consecutive world championship title after winning 19 of the 22 Grands Prix.
Jos Verstappen featured in 106 Grands Prix during his days as an F1 driver before calling time on his career in 2003. He has since been involved in a number of racing series and made his World Rally Championship debut in August 2022 in a Citroen C3 at the Ypres Rally in Belgium.
The 51-year-old then clinched his maiden rally victory in May this year as he won the Monteberg Rally in Belgium at the wheel of a Skoda Fabia RS Rally2.
Verstappen Jnr is habitually supported on F1 race weekends by his father. But the 26-year-old may not return the favour. “I would love to,” he told Blick. “But with this sport, everything is open, you can’t hide – and I love my privacy. I would only be there to watch Jos, but not to talk to other people. I might distract him, so I think carefully about my rally appearances.”
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Ahead of his first rallying event, Verstappen Snr explained his son’s thoughts on his venture into the sport as he told reporters: “He thinks I’m crazy. But he understands and he enjoys it. I have him on the phone every day. He likes it and he enjoys it as long as I have fun.
“It is excitement at every stage. When you do a Formula 1 race you have that excitement before the race and then you have the start and that starts the adrenaline. But here in rally you have this eight times a day. Then it is so exciting because you don’t know the circuit and you have to listen, and this makes it exciting.”
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Earlier this year, Jos was involved in a high-speed crash as he was preparing for the Rally La Nucia. According to The Sun, the Dutchman was driving his Skoda Fabis RS downhill with co-driver Renaud Jamoulin during testing when the vehicle collided with a barrier at the side of the road.
And the duo would have careered over a cliff had the barrier not halted them. The accident wrecked the front of the Red Bull sponsored vehicle, but neither man inside the car ended up injured.
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