Max Verstappen: the villain or victim of F1?
A closer look at one of the most polarising figures in F1 currently, specifically a dive into his relationship with his father.
Above is a young Max Verstappen (eight) sat in his father’s, Jos (left), racing car. Predicting his destiny.
When I first became an F1 fan, I hated Max Verstappen, practically despised him. I found him to be arrogant, egotistical and aggressive; the antithesis of a good sportsman. I was mainly influenced by my Dad, who’s a hardcore Lewis Hamilton fan, and to many Hamilton fans, Verstappen is their number one enemy. After the Hamilton and Verstappen world championship battle in 2021. My entrance into the sport came off the back of Verstappen’s record breaking 19/23 race wins and became a three time world champion. With him leading the 2024 driver championship with 51 points after three races, on track to become a four time world champion. My hatred slowly subsided over the passing months and now he’s in my top three favourite drivers - behind Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz.
Apart from my Dad’s snide comments on his opinions on Max, my hatred was shaped by his portrayal of him in the Netflix docuseries Formula 1: Drive To Survive, which takes the viewer on a behind the scenes look on the trials and tribulations of the teams and the drivers themselves. The series birthed a new interest into the sport, including myself, and although it is an addicting, critically acclaimed show, it has been criticised by its overdramatisation of events and conflicts. Which Verstappen talked about in a GQ article: “But a lot of the scenes are literally copy-pasted, even with sentences, things that had been said that I know have not been said at the time.” Max was probably one of the worst victims of this with him being portrayed as a villain and playing up his “Mad Max” persona. The most notable example of this was Drive To Survive’s recount of Verstappen and Esteban Ocons’ physical alteration after the race - they had a collision in the race resulting with Max pushing Ocon . In which they painted Verstappen in an unfavourable light, which they continued to do so in later seasons, painting him as the “bad guy”. Thus Max has distanced himself from the show and rarely makes appearances for the sit down interviews on the show. The characterisation on this show only fuelled my hatred more. Ex-racing driver Max Fewtrell, Lando Norris’ best friend, commented on this: “he actually kind of gets this villain persona, but I don’t know why. He’s actually a really nice guy”. Making me question if the Drive To Survive Max was an accurate and fair characterisation of the real Max Verstappen.
The beginning of the gradual dissolvement of my hatred was when I stumbled across a Tik Tok video of a compilation of Penelope Piquet interrupting Max’s streams on his Sim Racing team, Team Redline, where he frequently streams on Twitch and games with his other team members. Penelope Piquet is Verstappen’s four year old step daughter of ex-Formula 1 driver Daniel Kvyat and model Kelly Piquet - daughter of F1 legend Nelson Piquet. In the compilation, it showed numerous instances of when Penelope would sneak into his streams and give him a bedtime hugs, kisses him multiple time on his head, cry about going in the shower as she wants to stay with him or make him stop streaming and come play tea party with her, which he happily obliged to. Which posed the question in my head, how could a little girl be so enamoured with someone so arrogant and egotistical? Especially when someone has Jos Verstappen as a father.
Above is one of the instances when Penelope interrupts Max streams to give him a hug.
The main reason for my hatred dissolving was due to my exploration of Max’s relationship with his father and his upbringing. I remember seeing a Tik Tok edit of Max to Mitski’s I Bet on Losing Dogs with an audio snippet from the Isle of Dogs: “I’m not a violent dog, I don’t know why I bite”. In which it showed clips of Max of his Mad Max persona and on the final line part of the snippet - “I don’t why I bite” - it showed a clip of his father Jos Verstappen. Compelling me to discover more about this infamous tyrant in the F1 community.
Jos Verstappen is an ex-Formula 1 driver with a pretty unspectacular career with only 2 podiums for eight seasons from 1994-2003, with his son Max set out to do what he never achieved: become world champion. Max was born in 1997 with racing in his blood not only from his Dad, but his Mother, Sophie Kumpen, an ex-karting racer who battled against F1 driver Jensen Button and Max future boss Christian Horner. It seemed that Max’s “destiny” was carved out for him from birth, specifically by his dad. In an interview between Jos and 7-time world champion Michael Schumacher in 2002, they were asked if they would encourage their sons, who are similar ages, to become F1 drivers. Schumacher brushes it off, hoping for anything for his son Mick, Verstappen however remains focused with his son becoming a sporting legend: “if he wants to play football, I’ll do whatever I can to get him onto the best team”.
Above is a young Max, smiling happily with his helmet.
To have a career in Formula 1, drivers’ first starting point is go karting at young ages, usually they start under ten, which then progresses to the three feeder series: F2, F3 and F4. Max was a racing prodigy winning countless titles and becoming the youngest ever person to win the KZ world championship in 2013. This is arguably down to the rigorous training that his father put him through. Jos Verstappen had extremely controversial ways in training his son; one instance was when Jos slapped Max helmet at a karting race in front of the other parents’ shock and horror. However, that was the least of the more extreme techniques he adopted.
In Max’s GQ article mentioned earlier, Max recalls the time when he misjudged his speed and crashed early in a karting race in Italy in 2012. Then on the ride home, Max states that he kept on talking about his rationale for the move that cost him the victory in the race, and his father threatened him that if he didn’t stop talking he would kick him out of the van. Max didn’t realise he was serious. He continued to speak and then at the next petrol station, Jos kicked him out of the van and left him all alone in Italy. Luckily his mother had come to the race and set off after them, so he called her and Jos eventually came to pick up Max and drove him home to the Netherlands. Jos refused to talk to him for a full week. In another incident, Jos and his father Frans were arrested in 1998 and charged with a five year suspended jail sentence for leaving another boy’s father with a fractured skull after a karting race.
Jos' violent behaviour also lends itself to his relationship with women. In December 2008, Verstappen was taken to court by his ex-wife and Max’s mother Sophie Kumpen for allegedly assaulting her, this was charged as not guilty, but it was discovered that he had threatened to attack her and violated her restraining order against him. Resulting in three months probation. Then in 2012, Verstappen was arrested for attempted murder for allegedly threatening to drive a car into his ex-girlfriend, but the charges were withdrawn. If one thing was certain, Max grew up with an angry father. Though there is no clear evidence that the physical violence was imposed onto Max, there are definitely clear signs of emotional abuse.
Some factors of emotional abuse are the demeaning, shaming and downgrading of a child’s achievements and their actions as a whole. In a Channel 4 interview with ex Red Bull driver David Coulthard, Max said that “[his] Dad never told [him] that [he] was going to be a world champion… [he] would be a truck driver or a bus driver”. In another interview, Max was given the question of would he prefer an easy win with a twenty second lead or a fifty lap battle for second. Without hesitation Max replied with an easy win as his father, of whom was in the room, used to tell him that “second place is the first loser”. Cementing and solidifying the cruel rhetoric of a winner into his son; Max was contortion into achieving what his father never did, forced to be a driver. To quote Jos: “I never abused him, I was teaching him”.
In comparison, the other famous father who rigorously coached his son was Anthony Hamilton, who took a different approach, a more supportive approach. One element that separates the Verstappens and the Hamiltons is their race. With Lewis Hamilton being the first and currently the only black man to compete in the sport. Therefore, the Hamilton’s had to act in a more elegant, clean and sophisticated way to the Verstappens as they would be held to more bias and scrutiny than their white counterparts. Anthony’s mantra was that he and his son “do their talking on the track” and fully encouraged and recognised his son’s talents: “I believe that my son, Lewis Hamilton, is going to be the greatest driver that has ever hit this business”. Which, arguably, he achieved with Lewis having the most wins and pole positions in F1 history and having tied the most world championship titles (7) with Michael Schumacher.
Lewis and Max have been placed in opposition since 2021, after the Abu Dhabi grand prix. Due to a call from the FIA under a safety car, Max overtook Lewis in the final winning his first world championship title and Lewis losing his eighth. After the race, Anthony went and congratulated Max and Jos for their victory; a sentiment that would not be returned by Jos, who after Max’s own wins has a look of distaste and has bashed his fists against a table in rage over one of Max’s crashes. Many Hamilton and Verstappen fans seem to hate the other, but with all of the villainisation of Max, he has never once downplayed Hamilton’s talents and praises him in interviews. Which again led to the dissolvement of my hatred for him. Was this really the arrogant, unsportsmanlike character that was portrayed to me?
Above is Jos (left) and Max (right) reflecting on his win of his first world championship title.
It is clear where Mad Max got his anger from, but it seems that Max hasn’t let that poison drip through and acts completely opposite with Penelope. With their most recent public outing being Penelope and Max flying out to Melbourne together for the Australian grand prix, where they met Penelope’s mother Kelly after she was in LA working. Videos of her were taken on race day where she was hanging out in the Red Bull garage with Max and the team, suited up with a kangaroo backpack, and it was evident that she had them all wrapped around her finger. Furthermore, more glimpses of their relationship was in Kelly Piquet’s wrap up of 2023 on her Instagram where there were numerous clips of them such as Penelope watching a race on the tv and Max helping her with an easter egg hunt, wearing bunny ears. Proving that perhaps Max isn’t the cruel father like his dad was.
After distancing myself from the perception of Max Verstappen and his character on Drive To Survive as an arrogant and self absorbed winner, I discovered, perhaps the real Max Verstappen: a charismatic and loving step father, who most of the grid would call a friend. Today, Max is in one of my top three drivers as he’s extremely entertaining and funny in interviews and videos off the track, whilst being misunderstood. Yet, Max has proven that he is one of the greats in F1 history, winning 19/23 races in the 2023 season - an unprecedented feat, one no driver has even come close to. It is hard to say whether this success is entirely down to Jos’ vigorous training or pure talent, but one thing's for sure that Max is not the cruel and callous figure he is made out to be. Reinforcing the valuable lesson that maybe you shouldn’t believe everything you see on tv.