For some of you, the phrase, “just wait until your father hears about this”, may ring a bell or two. The old saying that cropped up when you’d done something really silly and you were in trouble when dad got home.
So it seems that Max Verstappen may find a disappointed father when he gets home too. Max comes by his racing talent naturally as his father, Jos, was an F1 driver as well. As such, he’s been very involved in Max’s rise to F1 fame and has a few words regarding the issue on everyone’s mind, can Max calm it down a bit? Jos said:
“The overtake on Vettel really wasn’t on,” said Jos.
“That wasn’t possible. It was an error of judgement. In some circumstances Max just has to think more.
“I don’t want him to change his driving style. He passed two people at the start. He did that perfectly. That’s what we all want to see.
“But we don’t want to see these kinds of actions. He needs to have it under control. He needs to think.
“I’m seeing him tomorrow. Last weekend was very painful, but we’ll have to talk about it and analyse what happened in a normal way.
“This can’t happen. He already knows it, I don’t have to say much.”
Like most fans, we don’t want Max to lose his passion, aggression or spirit, just to use his head a little more and make moves that have chances of succeeding instead of crashing. That’s what Jos is advocating as well.
Paul and I have spoken about driver coaches and Sir Jackie Stewart has discussed it quite a bit in the past. In Max’s case, I think his father can play that role having been a driver himself. If Max will listen to anyone, perhaps it is his father that can improve max’s race craft, get some finesse in his driving and if he does that, Max can take it to a new level. Just as his teammate did in China.
Hat Tip: Autosport
Ha, I had this comment on another article the other day, “One has to wonder how much his father is now keeping him back (or egging him on)” Sounds like a little of both. He has cultivated Max’s style of driving aggression and now it is muscle memory. Like learning a bad habit in any other kind of sport it will be difficult to unlearn especially while this season is underway. He is capable of making relatively clean, aggressive passes, but seems to default to spaz mode on most occasions. 0 progress will be made until Max is ready accept… Read more »
+1 Micheal H.