Max Verstappen was calm throughout the 2021 championship saga and went ahead to win his first world championship.
Max Verstappen was crowned with his first championship title after he comfortably overtook Lewis Hamilton in the final lap of the Abu Dhabi GP.
Throughout the season, Verstappen remained calm under pressure in his battle with the seven-time world champion. This trait helped him finally beat Hamilton. However, early in his career, this approach did not impress his father, Jos Verstappen.
In a documentary about his life, the Dutchman recalled how his approach made his father angry. He said that his father used to tell him that with this approach he would become a truck driver.
“I am relaxed, which my father did not like very much. How many times have I heard that I would become a truck driver? Because I was so relaxed and sometimes lazy, according to him,” he said.
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Max Verstappen saw Jos as a ‘lunatic’
It can be said that due to Jos’ toughness, Max became the driver he is today. During Max’s F3 days, Jos used to shout at him from the pit wall to go faster. The Red Bull driver probably thought that his father was a lunatic.
Jos said, “He saw me as a lunatic. I was hanging over the wall, telling him to go quicker. He doesn’t need that now. It is in him, it is inside him and he doesn’t need it anymore. He knows how to qualify.”
“At the beginning of his career, in Formula 3, he was still finding that perfect lap. During his Formula 1 career, he has improved on that quite a lot. Now, he is the man to beat in qualifying, 100 per cent, and on track, of course,” he further added.
In his previous interviews between the races in 2021, Max has repeatedly highlighted that he was calm and was not worried even if he does not win the championship. Verstappen said, “I know that if my car is fast enough until the end of the season, I will win the championship.”
“But if it’s not, then we probably won’t win it. At the end of the day, it’s not going to change my world.”
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