Verstappen Explains It Wasn't His Father Who Pushed Him Into Career Of Racing Driver

Wednesday, 28 February 2024 at 09:01

In a recent interview, Max Verstappen discussed how he started his career at the age of four, explaining the importance of not being pushed into something.

Max Verstappen is the son of Jos Verstappen, a former F1 driver. Many former F1 drivers' kids become racing drivers as well. It also often gets assumed these young kids are pushed into the sport of racing.

However, in his recent interview, the triple World Champion explained it wasn't his case. Being an F1 driver, his father used to own a go-kart team, and so the young Dutchman would often play around karting tracks. He told Hirado.hu:

"It was very funny because I saw someone driving younger than me at the time. I was already four, he was three years old, and I told my mom, 'I want to start as well, I want to start driving go-karts.'"

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Verstappen's father was still racing in F1 then, so he wasn't at the go-kart track, but Max, with his mother, called Jos, and he said: "No. I want you to wait till you are six to have a proper goal."

However, Verstappen asserted he kept on insisting until he would convince his parents to buy him a go-kart. The 26-year-old continued:

"But I kept on insisting and asking for a go-kart, so like half a year later, my mom was to my dad like: 'I think we should buy him a go-kart.'"

While growing up in such an environment (around karting tracks with racing driver parents) might have had a subconscious influence, he was never pushed into the sport. The triple World Champion highlighted the importance of that as he added:

"I think it's very important that parents don't push you into anything. Of course, in general, I think it's good for kids to do sports, but you let them pick what they want to do. That's basically also what happened with me."