Jos Verstappen extremely proud of son Max: 'This tops it all off'

Published on 12 December 2021 by Mike Motilall

Jos Verstappen witnessed his son Max today securing his maiden F1-world title at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix by overtaking rival Lewis Hamilton on the final lap of the race. The former Formula 1-driver saw with his own eyes how events suddenly favoured young Verstappen: ‘It’s insane what happened here’, an emotional Jos Verstappen shares with us. ‘Everyone had the notion during the race that we were not going to pull it off anymore, but then comes the Safety Car and we all start from scratch.’

Red Bull Racing has always been a strong team strategically, the same goes for this race: ‘The strategy of this team was spot on’, says Jos. ‘The softs were mounted on and then it’s hoping, hoping that the cars a lap down will move to the side as fast as possible. Then we also get word that they want to have the back markers stay where they are. My experience tells me that they always have the lapped cars overtake the Safety Car, after which the race is resumed. Luckily that eventually also happened.’

‘And we all know how Max is. Once given a chance, he’ll go for it. We all knew that he would go for it, and Lewis knew that all too well. And I must say, of course we were lucky that Max won, but looking at the entire season, Max is the only one that truly deserves it. We are really proud and I am very happy with the team. They worked extremely hard and are well deserving of this.’

How has Jos, as a dad, experienced the final laps? ‘You kind of see it coming. The last four, five laps, you’re hoping, jumping, whatever. You are hoping that that Williams gets retrieved as quickly as possible and eventually there is just only one lap left to drive. It’s almost unbearable, but I am extremely happy.’

Max and Jos have been on a long journey together to eventually reach where they are now. What does this mean for the former F1-driver? ‘You cannot describe that in a few minutes, but this is the reason why we did what we did. I sacrificed ten, fifteen years of my life to get him prepared and this tops it all off. It doesn’t get any better becoming an F1-world champion, so this is just outright insane. I am very proud of what we achieved’, Jos concludes.