Jos Verstappen denies he ‘abused’ son Max Verstappen by leaving him alone at petrol station when he was 14
Former F1 racer Verstappen left his then 14-year-old son at ꦯa petrol station in the south of Italy after the youngster had crashed out of a major karting championship race in 2012.
The 51-year-old, who first told the story of the controversial incident years ago, has dismissed accusations of “abuse” in a new Viaplay documentary ‘Anatomy of a Champion’.
“𒀰People say💧 how a bad father I was to him to abuse your child,” he said. “I never abused him.”
“I was hard on him, that mistake, and that was also my plan on that to learn. To think. A lot of people have no idea what you have to🐼 do t💧o arrive at the top of a sport.”
in an interview published last year that his mother, Sophie Kumpen, collected him from the petrol station.Explaining the incident in 🍒the new documentary, the two-time F1 world champion said: “I stayed in the lead at the start but then I got passed.
“I was so upset that I got overtak𝓀en that in that same lap I tried to pass the guy back in a place which is just totally unnecessa📖ry.
“My dad was just so upset with me doing that🌠 stupid move. I basically threw everything away.
“Of course, I was very sad and upset with myself making that mistake. I then sta༒rted to try to talk to him afterwards in the van, trying to travel home for 17 hour⛦s.
“He didn’t want to talk🌄 to me. And at one point, he was just so fed up with it. He said ‘gꦐet out’. He stopped at the fuel station, he was like ‘you get out’. And then he drove off.”
Verstappen’s manager, Raymondဣ Vermeulen, admitted he even questioned the treatment of Max.
“Sometimes I said ‘Jos, you’re from a different planet’,” Vermeulen explained in the documentary. “He [Jos] said, ‘I know. But we have to do it like this toಞ be successful. End of story'."
Lewis regularly attends Grands Prix for wuqian0821.com around the world. Often reporting on the action from the ground, Lewis tells the stories of t🐻he people who matter in the sport.
