It’s a lively affair in the parking lot of a local amusement park, where the rally teams have set up camp for the fortieth edition of the Hellendoorn Rally. There is a party tent, which serves as team accommodation. Drivers in race overalls walk among the visitors. Mechanics work in noodles next to their car from cardboard plates.
The contrast could hardly be greater with the jet-set world of Formula 1, where racing stables are tucked away in luxurious multi-storey buildings. It is the exclusive world that Jos Verstappen (107 F1 races between 1994 and 2003) knows like no other.
Verstappen does not miss that luxury in Hellendoorn for a second, judging by the smile that is almost permanently on his face. He consults amicably with his mechanics, personally checks his tires again and takes plenty of time for the many who want to take a picture with him. He is a crowd pleaser. Or more: his last name. ‘That’s Max’s daddy!’, a mother says cheerfully to her son when she has just taken a picture.
Father of champion
When Verstappen drove his last serious race about thirteen years ago, he was the most successful F1 driver ever from the Netherlands with two podium places. A few knew that he had a son who was extremely good at karting. Now he is mainly the father of the first Dutch Formula 1 champion, who is about to take his second title. In the meantime, he walked a unique path that made everything possible for Max’s F1 success, including his own racing career.
His son has been doing fine for a while now without the intensive supervision of his father. Is that why he has picked up his own racing life again? “No, I just rolled in here,” emphasizes Verstappen (50). “But it’s true that I was a bit more involved in the beginning than I am now. I’ve taken my steps back, but then it’s nice if you have a challenge yourself. Don’t get me wrong: I’m just having a great time at home, with my family and children. But to sit at home all day… I must have that challenge, so to speak.’
Rally driving actually came across his path by accident, says Verstappen. He still regularly races on circuits for fun. The racing company where he arranged this once tipped him to participate in a rally test. It was love at first sight.
Debut in Belgium
At the end of February, Verstappen made his debut in a Belgian rally, where he immediately finished in the top-10. Four more races followed in Belgium, with his debut in the rally world championship last month in Ypres. That also went well, after which he added four more rallies to the calendar. “It’s nothing like anything I’ve ever done. That’s why I like it’, says Verstappen enthusiastically.
In the motorsport discipline, a race is not run on a fixed circuit, as in Formula 1, but it is about completing a route between two points (special stages) as quickly as possible on closed public roads. A driver is supported by a navigator, who sits next to him. Competitions often span several days, with trials in varying conditions. Verstappen: ‘Normally you feel the adrenaline and competition at the start of a race. Here you have that every test again. That really gives me a kick. And it is very challenging. You explore the course in a normal car at normal speeds. The next time you get into this thing and you have to drive straight to the limit,” he says, pointing to his Citroën C3 R5.
What does Max actually think of his rally driving? “He thinks I’m crazy,” he jokes, adding something more serious. ‘No Haha. He likes it, but he doesn’t like driving so close to those trees. But I think I also had that when I was that young. That’ll come. He’s busy with other things now.’
For Verstappen, it’s all about having fun. He goes on his rally adventure with a soul mate he knows from karting, Richard Pex. Shortly before the first test on Friday evening, there follows a close embrace between the two, after which they wish each other good luck with a smile.
dead serious
But, as with everything Verstappen does in racing, he takes it very seriously. For example, the Citroën C3 rolled out of the bus after intensive tests with different types of rally cars. “I have to feel like it’s good,” he says. According to Verstappen, the team that prepares his car – the Belgian DG Sport Competition – belongs to the top of the Benelux.
After a few races he already said goodbye to his first navigator, the Belgian Kris Botson. “I felt from the first time that it wasn’t quite right,” says Verstappen about that substitution. ‘You must have a bond with someone, because you sit next to each other for a long time. And in competition, emotions run a bit higher. Then you have to be able to tolerate each other.’
With his new navigator, the experienced Dutchman Harm van Koppen, who drove his 101st rally in Hellendoorn, he has a much better click. Van Koppen explains that Verstappen doesn’t need to be taught much when it comes to driving itself: ‘Then he can go with everyone, especially in the Netherlands.’
For rally-specific things, such as making route notes during reconnaissance (pace notes) or reading roads, Verstappen still has a lot to learn. Van Koppen: ‘On a circuit it is always the same lap. It is different in rally sport. Suppose we have three hundred turns in a test over ten kilometers. In the next test there will be a hundred different, because others have passed by. The only way to learn that is to drive miles.’
He sees Verstappen improving every rally. ‘For example, it is already possible to tell a bit more about what is coming. In the beginning, that was sometimes too much. You really see progress there.’
In Hellendoorn they underlined that progress in their fourth rally. The largest rally in the Netherlands is known as cunning; asphalt roads alternate with sandy paths in the Salland forests. Driving is also done in the dark. The autumnal weather, with spontaneous showers, made it even more challenging.
Fourth place
It was all new circumstances for Verstappen. There was nothing to notice in his driving. After sixteen tests on Friday and Saturday, his name was in fourth place in the final result of the strong field of participants (more than eighty drivers).
What are his plans for the future? “We’re all discussing that a bit now, but we really liked the race in the world championship. I think we want to do some more of that,” Verstappen said. Furthermore, he mainly wants to gain experience, because ‘there is still a lot to learn. That’s also the beauty’.
He still has another rally year attached to it. There is a chance that he will be absent from his son’s races more often as a result. That would have been unthinkable a few years ago, when he was present at almost every Grand Prix. “But that is also partly due to corona,” says Verstappen. ‘We had to distance ourselves a bit because of that and at a certain point I liked it too. It’s quite intense if you hang all the races on the track and for me there isn’t always work to do. I come now when it’s really necessary, or when I feel like it.’
From the beginning of October, his rally adventure is in second place. He will travel to the Grand Prix of Singapore (October 2) anyway and possibly he will also be in Japan a week later. There is a good chance that Max Verstappen will take his second title at one of those races. Those moments will always take precedence in his life, whatever he is doing.