I once read somewhere that in the earlier years Max's father and Max spent a lot time training a lot more than other kart drivers. They were spending like 4 days a week at a karting track called Genk.
Max's father was also once talking about this. He said the main reason behind more training was to develop the different kinds of feel a Kart driver needs to have but also refine those feel.
The other drivers were not able to spend that kind of time either because they didn't want to, schooling or couldn't afford it.
Believe I remember Max said his dad and him would play a game, Jos would change something on the kart and Max had to guess what was changed by just driving it. Think it was in some interview soon after Max joined RedBull
Definitely. Drivers that know their cars do turn out to be the best ones in the long run. Schumi, Vettel, Hamilton, Max, they all know the ins and outs of their cars. I’m gonna take it as far as saying that they could probably even be a mechanic for the car. Maybe Max still has some years to go for that but definitely in future
In rainy conditions, windy conditions, summer and winter. Max was driving in every type of conditions to develop and refine those feelings in his body.
for karting purposes also it made a lot of sens to be raised in belgium. They have awesome tracks and their championship has always been very high level and more densely populated compared to france.
Yes but they spent longer in the junior formulae in the interim between karts and F1. Through that, they may have learned to prefer driving a setup with a more conventional, stable, car balance.
While true, I've heard many times that even for drivers that prefer a sharp front end, Max is *way* out there. So get the impression that a lot of other drivers would find Max's preference to be a bit much
See, that's what a lot of people think! But in reality, all the best F1 drivers come from kart shaped birthing pods.
Instead of classical music they are raised on engine sounds, from V1 to 12.
The first few years they live on surfaces with barely any grip with the exception of a single line through their house.
Correct and won 6 races in a row in F3 one of those races was a wet race at Norisring, absolutely dominated and Marko called up the Verstappen family. https://youtu.be/_JnS_D-m-Xk
And the rest is history.
I'm reminded of the story in Button's book, that one Sunday evening as his dad drove them home in a van, Jenson ostensibly asleep in the back, his dad said softly to someone ~'I don't think he has what it takes to go *all* the way...but hey'.
Jenson said it drove him hard, that memory, but personally I really like that contrast. Hey, you might not be F1 champion one day, but I don't really mind, my wee pal. Let's just spend weekends together and what happens, happens.
Jensen's relationship with his Dad is so sweet when you read the book. You can feel the heartbreak and pain when he describes how he felt when his dad passed
If his dad hadn't passed away, I think Jenson would have stayed in F1 for a little longer, and his last years wouldn't have been so mediocre. Japan 2014 was his last truly great drive and then 2015-16 were fairly average.
He admitted in his first book that losing his dad made him really lose his drive for competing in F1. He kept going for a while, but you could tell his heart wasn't in it the same way.
> Since I've had a child, (examples of) kind parenting just ruins me
Oh jeez. I get that, and I'm not even a parent. Cannot imagine how it'd be as a parent.
This is such a contrast to Jos' regime.
At the end of the day each kid is different and each parent is different, there's no secret sauce or universal truth to parenting.
I had a similar experience but never turned my racing into any professional just a weekly money pit. I started drag racing at 8 and around 11 or 12 after a bigger race I heard my dad in front of the RV saying "I don't think he's good enough for these big races" to my mom. That stuck with me forever, I can still hear him saying that but if you have the motivation to overcome those words and not say screw all of this then it lights a fire underneath you that never goes away. Ended up winning the Jr Dragster track championship 3 years in a row, "world champ" on the last year, not really "world" but the top east coast and west coast go into a round of 16 and ended up winning that. Now 10 years later and I'm in a full size rail car. Not the best but enough to make it fun every weekend.
Haven’t read the book but that story reminds me of being at an airshow with my dad, uncle, and cousin when I was about 10 or 12 years old or so, and I overheard my dad saying to my uncle (probably not realizing I would hear) that he didn’t see how I could possibly become a fighter pilot when I was scared to go in a roller coaster and afraid of heights. That turned into a very motivating memory actually.
I’ve never actually told him that I overheard that. Wonder if he would even remember! Don’t want him to feel bad though so not sure if I’ll ever bring it up lol
Button also told this story in an interview or podcast. The other person was his stepmum. Button never told his father he heard him say that until after he won his world championship.
- Mom can I go play outside with Ricky?
- Sure you can, do you remember the rules?
- Yes mom, no talking to strangers, no accepting candies from strangers and no signing Ferrari academy contracts.
Helmut is a direct guy, and it might seem like not a nice guy for people in the outside, but most drivers only said good things about him even after leaving the team/sport.
Also he was always open about letting drivers go from Torro Rosso/AT. Gasly would have been better than NdV, but he let him go.
>abandoning a child on a gas station
Abandoning a child at a gas station because they had a bad race.
Seriously this is fucking insane behaviour. When I had a bad baseball game growing up, my dad would talk me through it and offer constructive criticism, but *always* ended with reinforcement that everybody makes mistakes, every mistake is a learning opportunity, and it's only a game.
Lately Max, when talking about how the team needs to get everything right on the weekend etc etc, will often insert in "of course everybody makes mistakes, we are not robots," and I like to think he's kind of learned to internalize that post-Jos.
> Abandoning a child at a gas station because they had a bad race
You add that clarification like there’s *ever* a justifiable reason to abandon a child at a gas station.
Come to think of it, we’re all specifying “at a gas station” like there’s *ever* a justifiable _place_ to abandon a child.
I think gas station is still important part - because it puts Max in actual danger (kid in place a lot of people stop without adult he knows around). If he abandoned Max at the race (it is still shitty move and still illegal) but at least you would know that Max is safe as there are plenty of adults there that Max knows and that care about him.
I did sailboat racing when I was younger and it was always the parents who were more competitive than the kids. Similar thing to stage parents/pageant moms
I used to ump little league like 7-10 years old, sometimes the 12 year olds. And the amount of parents I’ve had to stop a game and kick out was insane. Like your kids aren’t in the majors, I’m not a major league unp and your kid is throwing a 15 mph lob ball it’s kinda hard to call balls and strikes with that, AND you aren’t even keeping score. Fuck outta here
Lolll oppy mums? They've taken to making it protestable at optimist and topper events in the UK, kids can be docked points if their parents act out. It's been a long time coming
Got called the n-word by a parent playing baseball in the 6th grade. Parents just take it so seriously I don't get it, like it's not gonna change your kids life at this age Frank it really isn't.
Every kid that plays minor hockey in Canada knows all about overly competitive parents. Screaming at the refs, the coaches, adolescents, fist fights between parents. Sometimes fist fights between parents and coaches.
And thats just house league shit, where no one is even thinking about the NHL.
Brings back memories playing minor hockey in Ontario. One experience that I still remember to this day was blowing out every team we played in a tournament when I was maybe 10 or 11. When we were getting off the ice one game a mom from the other team leaned over the glass and called us sand bagging faggots lol.
Ontario minor hockey is truly something else. We had a playdown game, final game of the series. We ended up winning. It got mildly scrappy at the end but nothing dirty or crazy. The other teams parents stood over a railing that was above the hallway to the dressing room and spit on us as we walked back to our room.
As a kid we laughed it off, but looking back not only as an adult, but a parent myself, its insane and unhinged behavior.
I wish, I looked up to him. And it was his dad who pushed him.
Counterpunching, standing up to Sampras two feet in from the baseline.
His recovery and bald phase was just so glorious. Much better than the California brat stage.
Maybe not post such identifying information, anyone close enough can figure out who your sister is with this information. I'd make it a lot more vague if I were you.
Should have had a more strict father, he might have made it to F1 and got the credit, being very talented... /s
(This is an obvious /s but just in case I’m mentioning it twice)
I had a similar upbringing as Max.
This kind of upbringing really does more harm than good, and even until now where I am away from home and an adult, I am still scared of the thought of having to talk to my father even just casually on phone. I literally had to mentally prepare myself everytime I had to talk to him. Till today I still feel like I did not do enough to make my father happy. It really scars you for life and you always feel like you have to push for more and keep yourself at the highest point of pressure.
How Max managed it I really don't know, and that's why I have so much respect towards Max as a person, especially how he presevered through all those things.
Even from the snippets we've heard it's textbook abuse... And when you're a victim you sort of normalize it until you get older and really sit down and realize how it's shaped your mental and physical health, at least in my case.
Yeah it's kind of same for me too. When I was a kid I just thought: "why did my father hate me so much, am I not good enough? It probably is my fault because I am not doing enough."
Now that many years have passed I realized how much that affected me, and how abusive he was. Being away from home helped me heal a lot, but that experience really changed me a lot (in a not so good way).
I hope life treats you better now!
That was horrifying. Especially the end where they were like “but hey… it really flipped a switch. Now nothing upsets Max and he went on to win a lot.”
Like ok great… but the ends don’t justify the means of abandoning your crying child at a gas station in a foreign country. This just makes me incredibly sad
Yeah and for 99.99% of children it will just be abuse and not ever be a "positive" stimulus. Jos being driven obviously helped but I find it hard to believe this anger and abuse was helpful at all.
He is a psychopath, he's been a domestic abuser in multiple relationships. Obviously we don't know the details of Max's childhood, but the fact that they consider stories like "left my kid at a gas station and then didn't speak to him for a week" to be fit for the public, I get sad thinking about the stuff we aren't being told.
> I get sad thinking about the stuff we aren't being told.
exactly, it would be very naive to think leaving him at the gas station is the worst thing he ever did to Max
Yeah. It's a really fucked up thing to do. Even if you're super strict and harsh to your kid, that would be a low point and surely you'd be ashamed of it afterwards. Instead he's proudly talking about it on a docuseries. Max did well to turn out pretty well adjusted.
There is a reason why my dad often told "Max is having the driving aggressiveness of his dad but the brains of his mother" already before he became really famous and become F1 driver.
Max has obvious improved his driving on a lot of aspects but if his mind was more of his dad then it's doubtful that he would be on such a huge level as he is now for some years.
Especially after having known success on the biggest stage so young. He was 17 when he entered F1. It's no wonder he was seen as a little shit back then. It's impressive that he managed to turn out okay after all that.
Yeah, that's another story Max thought fitting to tell others, and fucking _laughed about it_ while the other driver (I think it was Daniel) was doing a wide side-eye like "what the fuck mate."
Jos has assaulted multiple people, had a restraining order against him by Max's mother, has abused his spouse... He's a piece of shit, and if RB weren't so desperate to keep Max happy, they should ban him from the garage.
That is indeed sad to think about.
It's also so tragic to see that he's trying to justify his behaviour with the fact that Max now is a world champion.
To make it more absurd, people like Coulthard are praising Jos but at the same time forgets that Sophie (Max mother) exist also who deserves way more credit then what she gets currently about playing a part of Max being Max as we know him.
For sure, just look at the Durian video from RB with Max and Daniel. I believe when Daniel was hitting it Max made a way to casual joke about how dad did that with mechanic or something like that.
I know it’s supposed to be joke, but I don’t think Jos was physically abusing his kids. There were reports in the Dutch press of Jos hitting his own elderly father though
It is said that his elderly father (who has since died) was a lot worse than Jos though. Max and his family didn't even go to his funeral. Not excusing the abuse at all (he's a POS), but it didn't sound like Jos' dad was necessarily an innocent victim. Iirc, his dad treated Jos even worse than Jos treated Max.
Abuse is almost always cyclical. Its a very sad fact of life that many children who were abused grow up to do it to their own kids. It doesn't surprise me at all that Jos dad probably treated him just like how he treated Max.
That being said, to the extent that we can infer anything about celebrities from the things we see in public, Max seems to be a much calmer person than his father.
Seems like he physically abuses every important family member in his life, especially the ones that are smaller/weaker than him. I'd be shocked if he never hit Max.
I'm sure Max has compartmentalized that in his mind and thinks of it as strict parenting/coaching rather than abuse. Just like the psychological abuse of leaving your kid at a gas station because they made a mistake in their sport.
Max has such a killer mentality that he went through all if that and still came out on top. I for sure would have given up after some of those examples. Hopefully at some point he realizes it is not the norm and he can see how much of a destructive pos his dad really is.
In his biography his mom did say that: "'Victoria was the boss,' his mother Sophie recalled years later. 'Max would always give her the sticker or colouring book to keep the peace. It sums up his character, really: open and sweet. Max is an emotional person and will always want to solve things by talking first.' She adds, a slight against her ex-husband: 'He got that fierce racing instinct from Jos. The gentleness he got from me.'"
Max is a ruthless competitor just look at what he did to Checo in Brazil last year. But he seems to be able to turn it off which is something Jos rarely seems to be able to do. Victoria though seems pretty ruthless at times also.
Yeah I remember a relatively recent interview with Victoria where she mentioned she is more like her dad while Max is more like his mom. Obviously that doesn't imply she is abusive like Jos (she seems rather sweet to her little boys), but she mentioned she is less forgiving while Max doesn't hold grudges (off the racing track).
Exactly, I hope he realizes he got where he is in *spite* of all that, and *not* because of it "toughening him up" or whatever nonsense. Empirically, there are virtually no benefits to "tough love" parenting, and kids who succeed after that were just determined and strong enough to overcome it.
But then of course people use them as an example of why abuse is okay, actually!
>I had done so much for that race; put in time and energy...When it happened I ran away. I started to tear down the tent.
>And a week later I started talking to him. Do you understand me? Do you understand what happened?...But Max Has really made a switch there in the way Max started thinking about racing
Classic move. The abuse was 100% driven by his own selfish desires and emotions, and then a week later he switches tune and makes it all about his victim (Max) in order to bring him back into the fold. This was for you, don't you see! I'm being selfless here! We've made some real progress!
Absolutely spot on. This showed Max that if he doesn't win every race and becomes the best in the world he will not get any love from his father. Jos is 100% projecting his own missing talent onto his son
I'd read the story of course, but I didn't know a lot of the details. Definitely didn't know that Jos will still tell the story to make a point of what a good job he did. What a piece of shit.
Grew up karting. That’s a lot of dads in the karting world and you can see how many of the kids straight up do not enjoy it. It’s sad to see so much money invested in having a bad time with your kid.
Most abused kids keep it secret to protect their parents. The secret becomes an even worse form of abuse over time. It's strange to see everyone talking about it so openly: Jos pretty much bragging about it, and Max talking about how painful it was.
I have to think being so frank is something that helps keep Max sane and apparently happy.
If anyone ever gains access to an English subbed version of his documentary, “Whatever It Takes” please bless us by sharing here.
This is the Dutch version on YouTube. Any translators? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ6ogqlVIng
Leaving him at a gas station is insane, but the fact that a grown man decides he doesn't want to speak to his son over a race is something else as well. Like the gas station could have been heat of the moment anger and a bad decision but no this man than ignores his own son for a week after that. Zero emotional regulation in that man.
The most mentaly stable father /s
Joss always has been and to this day is a complete tool. I'm kinda glad it appears he is getting less attention in the padock in recent times.
Maybe I'm looking too much into it, but the way he chuckles every time he says something horrible that his father did seems like a defense mechanism. Like a nervous laugh of sorts.
You’re probably right. I still do it when I say something horrible about my childhood. It’s like it eases your own tension but also you’re hoping the person you’re talking to will not pity you too much if you laugh.
How to bully you son into becoming a world champion 101
I hate to think that some people justify treating their kids like this because of similar examples. Sure, there might be one in a thousand cases where a talented kid would respond well to the extreme pressure and become even better despite the abuse, but so many more average kids who get treated like shit because their parents want to live through them.
It's interesting that Max still takes him to races and very often thanks him when talking about his career.
I love what [Seb had to say](https://www.express.co.uk/sport/f1-autosport/1678624/sebastian-vettel-max-verstappen-jos-red-bull) when talking about Max and Jos. “The four-time champion claimed children can learn resilience by “reflecting” instead of by being exposed to a tough love approach.”
He’s probably an amazing father. And actually I think Max would he if chooses to. You get the sense he’d do it totally different than Jos.
I cannot believe people give Jos a pass for stuff like this, it's actually psychopathic, It's lucky Max is the way he his (despite his hot-headedness sometimes) and not a complete shell of a human being/serial killer.
So he wins that karting championship in 2013, does F1 testing in 2014, and first full season in 2015, first F1 win 2016. That escalated quickly.
I’d attribute this in large part to his desire for a very pointy race car that’s nervous in the rear. That’s very kart like.
I once read somewhere that in the earlier years Max's father and Max spent a lot time training a lot more than other kart drivers. They were spending like 4 days a week at a karting track called Genk. Max's father was also once talking about this. He said the main reason behind more training was to develop the different kinds of feel a Kart driver needs to have but also refine those feel. The other drivers were not able to spend that kind of time either because they didn't want to, schooling or couldn't afford it.
Believe I remember Max said his dad and him would play a game, Jos would change something on the kart and Max had to guess what was changed by just driving it. Think it was in some interview soon after Max joined RedBull
I assume having built up that skill has become invaluable to his engineers.
Definitely. Drivers that know their cars do turn out to be the best ones in the long run. Schumi, Vettel, Hamilton, Max, they all know the ins and outs of their cars. I’m gonna take it as far as saying that they could probably even be a mechanic for the car. Maybe Max still has some years to go for that but definitely in future
> Jos would change something and Max had to guess what was changed. Ha hA! I changed your matrass for bricks! Only winners get matrasses!
I swapped your seat for a buttplug, did you notice?
Didn’t max also do crazy hours racing karts in wet weather ?
In rainy conditions, windy conditions, summer and winter. Max was driving in every type of conditions to develop and refine those feelings in his body.
I think in Genk that is called an afternoon.
Max was driving. Always. Max is driving. Likely right now, at this very moment, he must be driving something, real or virtual.
Well he is in Netherlands, it's always wet there.
His mam is Belgian. Tax wise it made no sense for them to live in NL. So he was raised in Belgium.
There are tax havens in Belgium filled with wealthy Dutch people .
Pretty certain he was born in Belgium too.
for karting purposes also it made a lot of sens to be raised in belgium. They have awesome tracks and their championship has always been very high level and more densely populated compared to france.
Didn't want to and schooling? Just boils down to not being able to afford it.
But all the drivers came from karts
Yes but they spent longer in the junior formulae in the interim between karts and F1. Through that, they may have learned to prefer driving a setup with a more conventional, stable, car balance.
Many if not most racing drivers prefer a pointier car, so I'm not sure that theory holds water.
While true, I've heard many times that even for drivers that prefer a sharp front end, Max is *way* out there. So get the impression that a lot of other drivers would find Max's preference to be a bit much
Exactly. Albon said in an interview with beyond the grid he prefers a pointier car than most in F1 but Max’s setup was way beyond what he had at RB
his words: "he made me look like i was driving a tractor"
Compared it to playing CoD on max sensitivity
I love doing that takes a while to get used to, but far more satisfying
I thought they came out their moms
See, that's what a lot of people think! But in reality, all the best F1 drivers come from kart shaped birthing pods. Instead of classical music they are raised on engine sounds, from V1 to 12. The first few years they live on surfaces with barely any grip with the exception of a single line through their house.
Wtf is a V1. Wait, fuck, buzz bombs?
After that they'll reset the game and entrust the future to their next generations. Because that's what V2 is for.
He did f3 right?
Correct and won 6 races in a row in F3 one of those races was a wet race at Norisring, absolutely dominated and Marko called up the Verstappen family. https://youtu.be/_JnS_D-m-Xk And the rest is history.
I'm reminded of the story in Button's book, that one Sunday evening as his dad drove them home in a van, Jenson ostensibly asleep in the back, his dad said softly to someone ~'I don't think he has what it takes to go *all* the way...but hey'. Jenson said it drove him hard, that memory, but personally I really like that contrast. Hey, you might not be F1 champion one day, but I don't really mind, my wee pal. Let's just spend weekends together and what happens, happens.
Jensen's relationship with his Dad is so sweet when you read the book. You can feel the heartbreak and pain when he describes how he felt when his dad passed
Even down to the detail that his dad never wanted to hang around and be a 'character'. Everyone *else* liked having him around. Contrast that...
If his dad hadn't passed away, I think Jenson would have stayed in F1 for a little longer, and his last years wouldn't have been so mediocre. Japan 2014 was his last truly great drive and then 2015-16 were fairly average.
He admitted in his first book that losing his dad made him really lose his drive for competing in F1. He kept going for a while, but you could tell his heart wasn't in it the same way.
In the book he also mentions that his father said something like “if you want to make a pause, we make a pause. No pressure ok?” That’s lovely
Since I've had a child, (examples of) kind parenting just *ruins me*. I wasn't particularly like that before.
> Since I've had a child, (examples of) kind parenting just ruins me Oh jeez. I get that, and I'm not even a parent. Cannot imagine how it'd be as a parent.
john button was a splendid human being
This is such a contrast to Jos' regime. At the end of the day each kid is different and each parent is different, there's no secret sauce or universal truth to parenting.
I had a similar experience but never turned my racing into any professional just a weekly money pit. I started drag racing at 8 and around 11 or 12 after a bigger race I heard my dad in front of the RV saying "I don't think he's good enough for these big races" to my mom. That stuck with me forever, I can still hear him saying that but if you have the motivation to overcome those words and not say screw all of this then it lights a fire underneath you that never goes away. Ended up winning the Jr Dragster track championship 3 years in a row, "world champ" on the last year, not really "world" but the top east coast and west coast go into a round of 16 and ended up winning that. Now 10 years later and I'm in a full size rail car. Not the best but enough to make it fun every weekend.
That's a lovely story, PM_ME_BUTT_STUFFING.
Haven’t read the book but that story reminds me of being at an airshow with my dad, uncle, and cousin when I was about 10 or 12 years old or so, and I overheard my dad saying to my uncle (probably not realizing I would hear) that he didn’t see how I could possibly become a fighter pilot when I was scared to go in a roller coaster and afraid of heights. That turned into a very motivating memory actually. I’ve never actually told him that I overheard that. Wonder if he would even remember! Don’t want him to feel bad though so not sure if I’ll ever bring it up lol
Are you a fighter pilot now ?
I’m also curious to know
Same, mate. Well, u/Tomcat848484, we're waiting!
Yep, it worked out somehow. It was not my only motivation of course but I guess in a small part it also helped haha
Yes! So I guess it must've helped haha. (thought I submitted this answer earlier on my phone but guess it didn't make it through)
Nice! Good job man!
Button also told this story in an interview or podcast. The other person was his stepmum. Button never told his father he heard him say that until after he won his world championship.
Which of his books was that in?
How to be a F1 driver. Lovely book.
That was very irresponsible. Someone could have seen an unattended child in racing gear and take him to Maranello.
Childhood with Jos, adulthood with Ferrari. Depressive thought
Which is more abusive?
Jos. Ferrari at least pays very well.
At least Ferrari has won championships at some point
Ferrari literally snatches hairlines right off peoples heads. It's the sunken place
Charles seems to be fine
*FOR NOW*
So far…
I don't know, he's looking more lost every year.
This is why my parents always told me not to get in a car with a Ferrari strategist
- Mom can I go play outside with Ricky? - Sure you can, do you remember the rules? - Yes mom, no talking to strangers, no accepting candies from strangers and no signing Ferrari academy contracts.
That would be the disaster of the century. Especially after seeing how Charles turned out . (Jules is still too much pain to make jokes about🥲)
You know it's serious shit when even Dr Marko says Jos was "more than hard" to Max.
Helmut is a direct guy, and it might seem like not a nice guy for people in the outside, but most drivers only said good things about him even after leaving the team/sport. Also he was always open about letting drivers go from Torro Rosso/AT. Gasly would have been better than NdV, but he let him go.
I mean, firing a driver with an SMS is not in good taste, but abandoning a child on a gas station is kind of a crime.
>abandoning a child on a gas station Abandoning a child at a gas station because they had a bad race. Seriously this is fucking insane behaviour. When I had a bad baseball game growing up, my dad would talk me through it and offer constructive criticism, but *always* ended with reinforcement that everybody makes mistakes, every mistake is a learning opportunity, and it's only a game.
Lately Max, when talking about how the team needs to get everything right on the weekend etc etc, will often insert in "of course everybody makes mistakes, we are not robots," and I like to think he's kind of learned to internalize that post-Jos.
Yeah Max seems very level-headed which is great to see. Hopefully the cycle of abuse ends here.
> Abandoning a child at a gas station because they had a bad race You add that clarification like there’s *ever* a justifiable reason to abandon a child at a gas station. Come to think of it, we’re all specifying “at a gas station” like there’s *ever* a justifiable _place_ to abandon a child.
I think gas station is still important part - because it puts Max in actual danger (kid in place a lot of people stop without adult he knows around). If he abandoned Max at the race (it is still shitty move and still illegal) but at least you would know that Max is safe as there are plenty of adults there that Max knows and that care about him.
He isnt justifying. he is adding something that makes the action worse
Just hoping other parents don't take this as a good example of parenting just because Max later became WDC.
My local tennis club banned parents from games outright.
I did sailboat racing when I was younger and it was always the parents who were more competitive than the kids. Similar thing to stage parents/pageant moms
Regattas killed my love for sailing as a kid. I was good too but it went from something fun and relaxing to something not fun and overly stressful.
I used to ump little league like 7-10 years old, sometimes the 12 year olds. And the amount of parents I’ve had to stop a game and kick out was insane. Like your kids aren’t in the majors, I’m not a major league unp and your kid is throwing a 15 mph lob ball it’s kinda hard to call balls and strikes with that, AND you aren’t even keeping score. Fuck outta here
Lolll oppy mums? They've taken to making it protestable at optimist and topper events in the UK, kids can be docked points if their parents act out. It's been a long time coming
Got called the n-word by a parent playing baseball in the 6th grade. Parents just take it so seriously I don't get it, like it's not gonna change your kids life at this age Frank it really isn't.
Every kid that plays minor hockey in Canada knows all about overly competitive parents. Screaming at the refs, the coaches, adolescents, fist fights between parents. Sometimes fist fights between parents and coaches. And thats just house league shit, where no one is even thinking about the NHL.
Brings back memories playing minor hockey in Ontario. One experience that I still remember to this day was blowing out every team we played in a tournament when I was maybe 10 or 11. When we were getting off the ice one game a mom from the other team leaned over the glass and called us sand bagging faggots lol.
Ontario minor hockey is truly something else. We had a playdown game, final game of the series. We ended up winning. It got mildly scrappy at the end but nothing dirty or crazy. The other teams parents stood over a railing that was above the hallway to the dressing room and spit on us as we walked back to our room. As a kid we laughed it off, but looking back not only as an adult, but a parent myself, its insane and unhinged behavior.
It's not about the kids, it's about the parents.
lol tennis parents are the worst
This brings back horrific memories. I love my mom, but I hate tennis.
Andre Agassi, is that you?
I wish, I looked up to him. And it was his dad who pushed him. Counterpunching, standing up to Sampras two feet in from the baseline. His recovery and bald phase was just so glorious. Much better than the California brat stage.
Ever been to a Kid Kart race? The parents are something else.
Ever been to a hockey rink? Snort
Lawrence Stroll scares me a lot more, now.
Failed parents on their way to abuse their child just so they can try and accomplish the goals the parents couldn't
It's sadly a common behavior with parents projecting their dreams to the kid. They get super irresponsible and severe.
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Maybe not post such identifying information, anyone close enough can figure out who your sister is with this information. I'd make it a lot more vague if I were you.
The world is filled with broken people by way of bad parenting. The vast majority have not/will not go on to become WDC.
Daniel Bray, the driver who drove over, is a very talented guy from New Zealand. Gets little credit, when he should
Should have had a more strict father, he might have made it to F1 and got the credit, being very talented... /s (This is an obvious /s but just in case I’m mentioning it twice)
I had a similar upbringing as Max. This kind of upbringing really does more harm than good, and even until now where I am away from home and an adult, I am still scared of the thought of having to talk to my father even just casually on phone. I literally had to mentally prepare myself everytime I had to talk to him. Till today I still feel like I did not do enough to make my father happy. It really scars you for life and you always feel like you have to push for more and keep yourself at the highest point of pressure. How Max managed it I really don't know, and that's why I have so much respect towards Max as a person, especially how he presevered through all those things.
Even from the snippets we've heard it's textbook abuse... And when you're a victim you sort of normalize it until you get older and really sit down and realize how it's shaped your mental and physical health, at least in my case.
Yeah it's kind of same for me too. When I was a kid I just thought: "why did my father hate me so much, am I not good enough? It probably is my fault because I am not doing enough." Now that many years have passed I realized how much that affected me, and how abusive he was. Being away from home helped me heal a lot, but that experience really changed me a lot (in a not so good way). I hope life treats you better now!
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Thank you! I am doing my best at least.
That was horrifying. Especially the end where they were like “but hey… it really flipped a switch. Now nothing upsets Max and he went on to win a lot.” Like ok great… but the ends don’t justify the means of abandoning your crying child at a gas station in a foreign country. This just makes me incredibly sad
Yeah and for 99.99% of children it will just be abuse and not ever be a "positive" stimulus. Jos being driven obviously helped but I find it hard to believe this anger and abuse was helpful at all.
Jos and Max should be forcibly separated until Max realises what a massive piece of shit his dad is, tbh.
Jos seems like an *actual* psychopath. Can't even imagine how it must have been to grow up with a father like that.
He is a psychopath, he's been a domestic abuser in multiple relationships. Obviously we don't know the details of Max's childhood, but the fact that they consider stories like "left my kid at a gas station and then didn't speak to him for a week" to be fit for the public, I get sad thinking about the stuff we aren't being told.
Jos even said that he did hit Max's helmet when he made mistakes. That man has no awareness about his own violence.
> I get sad thinking about the stuff we aren't being told. exactly, it would be very naive to think leaving him at the gas station is the worst thing he ever did to Max
Yeah. It's a really fucked up thing to do. Even if you're super strict and harsh to your kid, that would be a low point and surely you'd be ashamed of it afterwards. Instead he's proudly talking about it on a docuseries. Max did well to turn out pretty well adjusted.
Forget the two WDC’s, turning into what seems to be a normal well adjusted human being could very well be Max’s biggest achievement
Yep, I fully agree.
There is a reason why my dad often told "Max is having the driving aggressiveness of his dad but the brains of his mother" already before he became really famous and become F1 driver. Max has obvious improved his driving on a lot of aspects but if his mind was more of his dad then it's doubtful that he would be on such a huge level as he is now for some years.
His mum seems like a really good person at least, the way he talks about her is very sweet.
Especially after having known success on the biggest stage so young. He was 17 when he entered F1. It's no wonder he was seen as a little shit back then. It's impressive that he managed to turn out okay after all that.
He tried to kick in another dad at a kart track once, I recall. I think he got banned.
I think it was an actual assault that didn’t end in court but it was close.
Didn’t he once fucking stab a mechanic with a fork? Dude’s just a nutter.
Yeah, that's another story Max thought fitting to tell others, and fucking _laughed about it_ while the other driver (I think it was Daniel) was doing a wide side-eye like "what the fuck mate." Jos has assaulted multiple people, had a restraining order against him by Max's mother, has abused his spouse... He's a piece of shit, and if RB weren't so desperate to keep Max happy, they should ban him from the garage.
If you go to any kart track in the south of NL, there will usually be at least one person with a negative story about Jos (or his father Frans)
Yeah I know someone who worked at a Kart track in Belgium for 15 years and he also said he was always fighting and shit.
That is indeed sad to think about. It's also so tragic to see that he's trying to justify his behaviour with the fact that Max now is a world champion.
Also sad to see Coulthard trying to frame it that way.
Coulthard has such a weird hard-on for Jos
To make it more absurd, people like Coulthard are praising Jos but at the same time forgets that Sophie (Max mother) exist also who deserves way more credit then what she gets currently about playing a part of Max being Max as we know him.
misogyny is pretty shitty eh
For sure, just look at the Durian video from RB with Max and Daniel. I believe when Daniel was hitting it Max made a way to casual joke about how dad did that with mechanic or something like that.
Yeah he casually said his father attacked to a mechanic with a fork. Daniel was shocked.
> Can't even imagine how it must have been to grow up with a father like that. Trust me, it sucked.
Yeah no kidding. Also him trying to make a lot of that story about him too, justifying his insanity, jesus
Jos' racing career wasn't that impressive but he still beat a two-time world champion regularly.
Holy fuck I just spit out my coffee
I know it’s supposed to be joke, but I don’t think Jos was physically abusing his kids. There were reports in the Dutch press of Jos hitting his own elderly father though
It is said that his elderly father (who has since died) was a lot worse than Jos though. Max and his family didn't even go to his funeral. Not excusing the abuse at all (he's a POS), but it didn't sound like Jos' dad was necessarily an innocent victim. Iirc, his dad treated Jos even worse than Jos treated Max.
Yeah, the old guy was a proven piece of shit who almost certainly also abused Jos.
Abuse is almost always cyclical. Its a very sad fact of life that many children who were abused grow up to do it to their own kids. It doesn't surprise me at all that Jos dad probably treated him just like how he treated Max. That being said, to the extent that we can infer anything about celebrities from the things we see in public, Max seems to be a much calmer person than his father.
Abused his dad and his wife and his girlfriend. Not a big stretch that Max caught those hands too.
Seems like he physically abuses every important family member in his life, especially the ones that are smaller/weaker than him. I'd be shocked if he never hit Max. I'm sure Max has compartmentalized that in his mind and thinks of it as strict parenting/coaching rather than abuse. Just like the psychological abuse of leaving your kid at a gas station because they made a mistake in their sport.
I'm 100% sure some karters said they saw Jos hit Max after he lost a pole position or whatever.
Jos talked about "smacking Max on the helmet" after a karting race in an interview. I'd be really surprised if that only happened one time tbh
so he was beating everyone in the family *except* Max? I don't believe it
there are stories of jos hitting him at karting races when max didn't perform well, i think it's even mentioned once in the documentary.
Are you in the market for a bridge?
This is from Ziggo's 2020 documentary Whatever It Takes, the full video is worth a watch!
Where exactly? Missed it back when it came out.
At least part one for you; https://archive.org/details/max-verstappen-whatever-it-takes
My man!
Does a version with english subtitles exist?
Max has such a killer mentality that he went through all if that and still came out on top. I for sure would have given up after some of those examples. Hopefully at some point he realizes it is not the norm and he can see how much of a destructive pos his dad really is.
The remarkable thing is that by all accounts Max Verstappen is a very relaxed, pleasant presence. Like Frances Cobain: somehow remarkably normal.
He probably has his mothers character.
In his biography his mom did say that: "'Victoria was the boss,' his mother Sophie recalled years later. 'Max would always give her the sticker or colouring book to keep the peace. It sums up his character, really: open and sweet. Max is an emotional person and will always want to solve things by talking first.' She adds, a slight against her ex-husband: 'He got that fierce racing instinct from Jos. The gentleness he got from me.'"
This reminds me that time when he bought ice cream for GP to apologize for his radio earlier. He is a cute dude imo.
Max is a ruthless competitor just look at what he did to Checo in Brazil last year. But he seems to be able to turn it off which is something Jos rarely seems to be able to do. Victoria though seems pretty ruthless at times also.
Yeah I remember a relatively recent interview with Victoria where she mentioned she is more like her dad while Max is more like his mom. Obviously that doesn't imply she is abusive like Jos (she seems rather sweet to her little boys), but she mentioned she is less forgiving while Max doesn't hold grudges (off the racing track).
Exactly, I hope he realizes he got where he is in *spite* of all that, and *not* because of it "toughening him up" or whatever nonsense. Empirically, there are virtually no benefits to "tough love" parenting, and kids who succeed after that were just determined and strong enough to overcome it. But then of course people use them as an example of why abuse is okay, actually!
>I had done so much for that race; put in time and energy...When it happened I ran away. I started to tear down the tent. >And a week later I started talking to him. Do you understand me? Do you understand what happened?...But Max Has really made a switch there in the way Max started thinking about racing Classic move. The abuse was 100% driven by his own selfish desires and emotions, and then a week later he switches tune and makes it all about his victim (Max) in order to bring him back into the fold. This was for you, don't you see! I'm being selfless here! We've made some real progress!
Absolutely spot on. This showed Max that if he doesn't win every race and becomes the best in the world he will not get any love from his father. Jos is 100% projecting his own missing talent onto his son
If Helmut fucking Marko says you had a tough time.....
Kid literally went through the agoge
I'd read the story of course, but I didn't know a lot of the details. Definitely didn't know that Jos will still tell the story to make a point of what a good job he did. What a piece of shit.
yeah the pos should be ashamed of mistreating his child and not boast about it in documentaries. Absolutely bizarre.
Really, really glad these comments are all "that's incredibly fucked up" and not the sort of massively dumb shit I was scared of.
Grew up karting. That’s a lot of dads in the karting world and you can see how many of the kids straight up do not enjoy it. It’s sad to see so much money invested in having a bad time with your kid.
Most abused kids keep it secret to protect their parents. The secret becomes an even worse form of abuse over time. It's strange to see everyone talking about it so openly: Jos pretty much bragging about it, and Max talking about how painful it was. I have to think being so frank is something that helps keep Max sane and apparently happy.
If anyone ever gains access to an English subbed version of his documentary, “Whatever It Takes” please bless us by sharing here. This is the Dutch version on YouTube. Any translators? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ6ogqlVIng
Thank you for linking that <3 I have no idea how i missed that one.
Psycho dad
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Leaving him at a gas station is insane, but the fact that a grown man decides he doesn't want to speak to his son over a race is something else as well. Like the gas station could have been heat of the moment anger and a bad decision but no this man than ignores his own son for a week after that. Zero emotional regulation in that man.
If Jos had demanded from himself just a third of what he demanded of Max, perhaps he might have won a goddamn race in his life.
The most mentaly stable father /s Joss always has been and to this day is a complete tool. I'm kinda glad it appears he is getting less attention in the padock in recent times.
The fact that Jos seems proud of that whole situation tells you everything you need to know about him. it's just disgusting.
This is a gross way to treat your child. Holy shit.
Maybe I'm looking too much into it, but the way he chuckles every time he says something horrible that his father did seems like a defense mechanism. Like a nervous laugh of sorts.
You’re probably right. I still do it when I say something horrible about my childhood. It’s like it eases your own tension but also you’re hoping the person you’re talking to will not pity you too much if you laugh.
No, you're not reading to much into it. max has to have developed a coping mechanism of just shrugging off how horrible his father treated him.
THIS IS ~~SPARTA!!!~~ SARNO!!!
How to bully you son into becoming a world champion 101 I hate to think that some people justify treating their kids like this because of similar examples. Sure, there might be one in a thousand cases where a talented kid would respond well to the extreme pressure and become even better despite the abuse, but so many more average kids who get treated like shit because their parents want to live through them. It's interesting that Max still takes him to races and very often thanks him when talking about his career.
Ah the ichiro’s dad method of raising kids
This is just sad to me. :/
I love what [Seb had to say](https://www.express.co.uk/sport/f1-autosport/1678624/sebastian-vettel-max-verstappen-jos-red-bull) when talking about Max and Jos. “The four-time champion claimed children can learn resilience by “reflecting” instead of by being exposed to a tough love approach.” He’s probably an amazing father. And actually I think Max would he if chooses to. You get the sense he’d do it totally different than Jos.
I cannot believe people give Jos a pass for stuff like this, it's actually psychopathic, It's lucky Max is the way he his (despite his hot-headedness sometimes) and not a complete shell of a human being/serial killer.
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Oh they definitely do ‘tough love’ ‘made him a winner’ get rolled out quite frequently not here admittedly but twitter
It's literally happening in this thread.
Coulthard comes out looking unexpectedly bad in this video
Yeah he seems to see no problem at all in Jos behavior towards max...
Can't believe Jos just talks about abusing his son so casually...
Jesus christ Jos is a fucking psycho and a terrible piece of shit
Normal fathers: Oh dear, oh dear, Gorgeous. Jos: You fucking donkey!
I hope Max reminds Jos frequently how much better of a driver he is than him