Jos Verstappen: 'I was hard on Max but never abused him'

Jos Verstappen concedes that he was hard on his son Max during his formative years in motorsport, but denies that he was ever abusive towards the two-time F1 world champion.

Verstappen Sr, who competed in 107 Grands Prix, took the burgeoning young talent under his wing, supported his efforts in karting and groomed his skills until he made his entry into the big time with Toro Rosso in 2015 and became the youngest F1 driver in history at 17 years and 166 days.

But there was some tough love between father and son along the way and during the latter's early years in karting.

While Jos threw everything at his son's career, preparing his chassis and engines during the day while Max was in school, the apprenticeship also involved countless hours of lapping in the cold, in the rain or in the sleet at local tracks to the point of exhaustion and tears for the youngster.

To counter Max's early and easy success, his father would forbid him from overtaking his rivals at the most obvious corner of the track, forcing him to find more difficult spots or other ways to overhaul his adversaries.

Verstappen once remembered how he had been "driving like a potato" at an event during his penultimate season in karting. His performance was greeted with a big thump on the helmet by his father and with the threat of packing up and going home if he didn't get his act together.

"A nice wake-up call. I needed it," Max claimed.

• Read also: Jos Verstappen reveals tell-tale sign Max 'had something special'

Although Verstappen Sr had identified in his son all the signs of a mercurial talent, praise was rarely expressed.

"My dad never said I was gonna be a champion," Verstappen told Channel 4 last year.

"He was always the opposite, he’d tell me I was gonna be a truck driver or like a bus driver. He was always, in a good way I think, making me realise that what I was doing at the time was not enough."

The tough learnings, while they did not come kindly, paid off though, with a linear trajectory to Formula 1.

"There are people who say I’m a bad father because I abused my child, I never abused him!" Jos said in a new documentary entitled 'Anatomy of a Champion', released by Viaplay.

"I raised him, I was hard on him. That was my plan, many people cannot imagine what it takes to reach the absolute top level of a sport.

"I’m normally not a guy who really likes to open up about these kinds of things, but I think it does give you a bit more of an insight into how everyone lived through that period.

"I know I’m not the easiest person to work with and I demanded a lot from Max," Jos added.

"But he was able to endure it all. He has always been mentally very strong."

For all the rewards bestowed upon him thanks to his father's no-nonsense approach to his education, and also thanks to his outstanding talent, Max Verstappen admits he'll probably choose a more gentle way to put his own children through the grind, if necessary.

"I definitely want children and if they want to race, that’s fine," Verstappen told Dutch newspaper De Limburger last year after winning his second world title.

"I do think I would do it differently than how my father and I handled it.

"I don’t really see that at the moment. But for me, it’s easy to talk because I don’t have kids. Maybe I will think very differently when the time comes. But, the passion he had went a long way.

"He did everything for me. Tuning engines, preparing karts. I don’t see myself doing that. Anyway, I’m not going to push my kids to race. They have to want it themselves.

"And if you do go for it with your son or daughter, I don’t think you can drive Formula 1 yourself anymore. You have to start laying the groundwork from the age of four. I want to be there myself."

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