![]() ![]() Max, with tears starting to well in his eyes, turned to two of his best friends Stan and Jorrit Pex, who had been there since day one of his kart career and knew the Verstappens well. "You can pick up the go-kart, I don't care," Jos said. Max can still recall Jos's exact response when he asked his father to help bring the kart back from the track. ![]() ![]() And so he trudged off in the direction of the hundred-or-so tent-like awnings in which the karts were prepared before each race.īack in the paddock, Jos was already packing the awning into the Verstappens' van. He must have returned to the paddock, thought Max. When he arrived, his father Jos was nowhere to be seen. Unable to rejoin the race, he walked back to the pit lane. The hot sun was beating down on his black overalls as he lifted himself out the kart, his body language expressing his utter disbelief. "So the world championship was gone just like that, which to this day would have been the easiest race of my life."Īs the kart spun through the dusty infield and came to a stop, Max threw his hands up in the air. "But when I went for the move, it was a bit of optimistic and we touched, and I retired. "I was like, 'You know what, because I'm so quick, I'm just going to pass him and drive off into the distance'," says Max now, aged 24. Even now, over 10 years later and having won a Formula One world drivers' title, he still remembers his reasoning for throwing his kart up the inside of Bray at Sarno's Turn 8, which is not a natural passing point. So when Bray steamed past at the end of the long straight into Sarno's sweeping second corner, Max simply had to take his first opportunity to re-pass his rival and correct the order. Max had been by far the fastest driver in the KZ2 class all weekend, almost to the point where it simply wouldn't have been right for anyone else to take the title from him. Of course, that was the real reason Daniel Bray, a much older kid from New Zealand, had got past Max. And that's why, when Max held the lead from pole position at the start of the final, he had been coaxing the kart into a slide through the corners - sacrificing some lap time to build up rubber on the outside of the tyre and extract maximum grip on the following lap. That meant that when they decided to swap the tyres on the rims for the final, it was always going to take a few laps for the grip to return. Then the hot Neapolitan sun had caused his rear tyres to overheat and blister as he made up those ten places to take pole position for the final. For starters, a burnt-out clutch in one of the early heats had left him tenth in the pre-final. But then there was the mistake.īut, you see, it wasn't all Max's fault. His father, Jos, a former F1 driver and now Max's full-time kart mechanic, always made sure his son had the best equipment when he moved up a class, and once again Max immediately looked very competitive against older, more experienced competition. The event was the KZ2 World Championship final at Sarno - a track near Naples, under the shadow of Mount Vesuvius - and Max was making the step up to shifter karts (go-karts with a gearbox) for the first time. The weekend had looked so promising, too. One of those weird moments in motorsport where a number of seemingly unrelated factors lead to a split-second decision that ultimately ruins a whole weekend's work. There was only one option left: call Mum.Īs he sat waiting for his mum, who was in a separate car a little further back on the same road, Max was still working the mistake over in his head. ![]() And he'd certainly never been left alone at a gas station in the south of Italy. In all of his 14 years and 11 months on this earth, he'd never seen his dad as angry as he was at the go-kart track a couple of hours earlier. The making of F1 world champion Max VerstappenĪs he watched his dad's van pull back on to the Autostrada without him, Max Verstappen was struggling to digest what had happened. You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser ![]()
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