At the 2000 European Grand Prix at the Nrburgring, Max Verstappen was two years and eight months old.
Max Verstappen was two and a half years old when his parents first realized he might be a racing driver.
Max Verstappen, the man who could end Lewis Hamilton's reign as Formula 1 world champion, was a quad bike enthusiast as a child, according to his father.
He had to adjust the steering and go on two wheels after he got it. He was wearing a helmet and it got scratched. He didn't mind.
He was driving all the time. He felt an engine. It didn't matter if it was a quad bike, an electric jeep, or small things for children. He was always behind the wheel. He had to be on it every day.
Max grew up with go-karts. His mother was a former top-level karter who competed against future F1 drivers as a teenager.
I didn't want him to start too early. I wanted to start at six. At least they understand a bit better at that age.
Max had other ideas. A couple of years after the garden incident on the quad bike, a phone call came in from Canada where he was racing karts.
Max and his family were at a race track in Genk, Belgium. "He was very sad," says Jos. There were younger people driving and he wanted to drive as well. That's when it all started.
That was 2002. By the end of 2003 his F1 career was over. He says he put 100% into his career after that. "That was my job."
A story of love and dedication ends in the emergence of a driver of incredible capability and talent.
An F1 driver father and a kart racer mother. Max Verstappen was born to be an F1 driver. His father effectively programmed him as well once that became clear.
Max says that he wouldn't be sitting right now if it weren't for his dad. He spent all his time preparing me since he stopped racing. He was my go-kart mechanic. Driving from Holland or Belgium to all the go-kart races in Europe.
Max was bought by Jos after the tears in Genk.
"We still have a go-kart," he says. It is in the Verstappen shop. I remember the first time he was in it. The thing was vibrating so much that the carburettor was falling off all the time.
I bought him a mini-kart because he was so small, and we had to adjust a lot because he was so small. It went better after that.
It was more of a case of "let's see what happens". "Let's get to Formula 1."
Go-karts are very expensive if you do it internationally, so I wouldn't go so deep into it if he didn't have the talent. We were practicing.
He was a lot more advanced than the other children of his age. It makes a big difference that we were competing against children two or three years older.
When he was seven, Max took part in his first kart race. His rivals were as young as 11. He won.
"It was difficult because the tyres were soft and the end of the race you could see he was tired," says Jos. He was competing in a way that showed his character. He didn't mind if other people were younger. You could see that was inside him.
Verstappen posted a photo on the social media site with the caption: "Always wanted to be a mechanic!"
How deep did the Verstappens go into tutoring Max?
How long have you been here? He says it. Let's say it like this. The next step was the junior category when he was nine or 10. We went to Italy every weekend in the winter.
The school ended at 2:30pm. I was waiting in a vehicle. I drove to Italy after he got in the van. We spent two days at all the circuits he needed to drive on and then I packed up and we drove back. It's about 1,250 km each way. I dropped him off at school again in the morning.
I wanted him to learn all the tracks in Italy, and I wanted to see where we were in terms of speed, in terms of engine, and things like that, because Italy is where all the competition is.
He loved it that I prepared ourselves well. Two people are in a van. He was sleeping all the time. You talk to him about how to race on the track and how to see things that are not normal.
It was the same in Genk. We were on the racing circuit at least two or three times a week and we didn't care if it rained. We went there even when it was -2C.
His hands were frozen after five laps. I told them to go in the van and warm up. He had to drive again after five minutes after I got him out of the van. It was not always nice for him, but I think that made him a better person.
He saw how much effort I put in and he hasn't seen anything different, that's how he is as well. He is determined and motivated.
The centre of the drivers, pictured in March 2010, are Verstappen and his teammates.
Max was making waves in the Dutch motor racing community. Max's results did the rest because of his father's success in F1 and the attention he got.
F1 drivers learn their trade in karting before moving on to formula cars. karts are like mini racing cars, they don't have gears, but drivers sit on them rather than in them, and they are like mini racing cars. Max was a natural.
It was obvious that Max was going for big things as the titles piled up. People began to notice how much effort his father was putting in.
Max Verstappen ran in Formula 3 for Frits van Amersfoort. He only had one year in single-seater racing before moving to F1.
"After a while, Max was programmed to be a race driver because of the genes built into the baby," Van Amersfoort says.
The tennis robot built by his father was used to get 3000 balls a day around his ears. It was like that. It was sometimes un-human, how the two of them worked together, how the father prepared his son to be the best racing driver in the world.
There were ups and downs. Max was a kid, but he was a phenomenon.
He says the purpose that has been evident in his F1 career was formed as a child on the karting tracks.
Max says that's what counts. My dad taught me how to live. You have to work with your team. Everything else doesn't matter.
It's easy to say, but is it difficult to do?
I spent a lot of years with my dad.
How did he do that?
A lot of different ways. Nice ways. A bit more angry. It works for me. I needed it. It was good that he made me toughen up.
Sometimes he needed it. I told him that I had to develop a lot of things and go to circuits to see if it was good because he was not focused and playing like that. I didn't have the right feedback if he was playing around.
Did he set out to make his son tough?
He says it's a little bit how he is. Did I intend to do it? I'm like that as well.
Max was the world champion in the highest kart racing category by the end of the year. It was time to get into car racing.
The first round of the F3 season was hosted by Verstappen.
Max's first trial in a single-seater was low-key. He contacted the Anglo-Dutch Manor MP team, who suggested a private test at Pembrey, a small circuit in south Wales that was occasionally used for junior single-seater races.
Pembrey did not have pit garages back then.
Tony Shaw, the team manager of the Manor MP team, said that they were surprised when they arrived and found a track and some sheep.
On the first day it was raining, the Verstappens had booked two days.
Shaw says that Jos wanted to delay letting Max out. He didn't want him to get wet. He wanted to let it dry. We were like, "No, let's just get out and get on with it."
"He was really nervous, I have to say, and you don't expect that of someone like Jos Verstappen, but he was pacing around all over the place."
He didn't have to worry.
Shaw says thatMax was "disastrous" from the start. A pleasure to work with. We wondered if this was his first test. He was in control, really, really quick, and completely natural.
In 2001, Hamilton had his first run in a racing car. The circumstances were not the same. While Verstappen had a track to himself, Hamilton was at a group test at a small circuit in the UK, not so far away from the UK's motorsport hub.
Shaw says they were a little worried when Lewis drove because there were lots of other cars on the track.
He ripped a corner off after having a bit of a shunt. He demonstrated a different way of not being afraid of it, by grabbing hold of it and throwing it around, whereas Max was much more controlled. He didn't make any mistakes.
We just thought, 'Woah.' He was very impressive. You knew that Max was going to shine. You knew immediately with both of them.
Verstappen was quick everywhere he went over that autumn and winter. They decided to go straight for Formula 3 and skip the category.
It was a bold move. F3 is a category that uses scaled-down F1 cars. It is usually not for beginners. Max was not normal.
The Van Amersfoort Racing team had Max and Jos at F3 testing.
The Verstappens knew of Van Amersfoort. After racing for his team in 1992 in Formula Lotus, he moved on to F3 in 1993 and then to F1 with Benetton, where he was a teammate of Michael Schumacher.
The idea was to compete in the European Formula 3 championship.
Van Amersfoort says that they were running out of time. It was February before the decision was made. We ordered a car but it wasn't delivered. We borrowed a piece of equipment. We built a car around it, did a run-out in Most in the Czech Republic, and went to the first official test in Hungary.
Max was the fastest from the beginning. That is a Verstappen. They are amazing. They will always do what they can to impress you. Their drive to be fast is very intense.
"After one day in the team, we said to each other: 'We could put Max in an F1 car tomorrow.' After a day. That's the truth.
Max won 10 races that year, one more than Ocon, but lost the title to the Frenchman because of an engine failure at the end of the season. There were 10-place grid penalties at three different races.
Verstappen's performance was amazing. The Mercedes and Red Bull F1 teams were interested in signing him. By August, Verstappen was a Red Bull driver. They signed him to race for their junior team in F1 in 2015, a few months after he had driven an F1 car.
In September, Verstappen had his first proper run in an F1 car and earned the licence he needed to drive at a grand prix weekend for the first time. The first practice session was held at the Japanese Grand Prix. He was the youngest ever F1 driver at 17 years and 166 days.
He was promoted to the Red Bull senior team after four races of the 2016 season. He won at the Spanish Grand Prix.
The Spanish Grand Prix was won by Verstappen at the age of 18.
It's hard to explain to someone who doesn't know much about motor racing how difficult it is for a driver to get into a category like F3 after only a few days of karting.
Drivers are supposed to go step-by-step through the junior categories. Many drivers spend more than one year in each category, and F3 would normally be the second or more likely third category. Only the special ones need a single year in each to reach F1.
"It's only possible when you have an extraordinary driver," Van Amersfoort says, "and we felt from the beginning that Max was like that." I can't repeat it enough with the knowledge of the man.
We're not talking about a simple driver coach. We accepted that from the beginning. The Verstappens have more skills than our team does. We made it a success.
We had discussions. We almost had fights. The year was great.
The F3 season was a success, but Van Amersfoort had a demanding one.
The Verstappen family is not easy to work with. They have high expectations. They don't settle for second and don't settle for a learning year. They want to be there from the beginning. They go for the best.
Van Amersfoort recalls an incident at the end of that year that shows Max's determination and single-mindedness.
The F3 season ended with a race in Macau in China, where all the leading drivers from the various championships compete together on a fast and dangerous street circuit that is held in admiration and awe by drivers around the world.
Macau has a long pit straight and a tight and demanding back part of the circuit, which is where slipstreaming is a key part of racing. It's more difficult and faster than Monaco. The first corner of the race is notorious for crashes.
Max should have won Macau. He was second in the qualification race, which would have been the perfect place to start the main event, as he could slipstream the pole position car down to the first corner. His determination to win overcame logic.
"Max was P2 in the qualification race but he didn't give up," Van Amersfoort says. He crashed the car trying to win a pole. That's Max.
Max's car was badly damaged in the feature race in Macau on Sunday. The marshals told him to get out because they wanted to tow it away, but he was told to get back to the starting grid.
He refused to leave. He was hanging from a crane as they lifted the car out of the crash. He drove back on three wheels to the grid after they put him back on the track. He finished seventh from the back.
I've seen a lot of race drivers, but I've never seen anything like that before.
Lewis Hamilton took a crucial victory at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, where Verstappen won F1's driver of the day.
Verstappen's will to win has been very clear throughout his F1 career, partly from his manner out of the car, his straightforwardness, and his absolute singularity of purpose. From the way he drives.
One of the defining aspects of Verstappen's battle with Hamilton this year has been his extreme aggressiveness. He will not back down in a wheel-to-wheel fight because racing ethics say they should.
If he's on the inside, he will push the other driver wide, if he's on the outside, he will turn in on them and compete, regardless of whether standard practice would dictate they have won the corner. That's how he runs.
He doesn't know where Max came up with that style. "He did it in go-karts, so I don't see anything different," he says. He will go for it when he sees the gap.
Van Amersfoort says that Jos was driving like that as well. That comes from the city of Jos. The stewards were visited a lot in the F3 year. A Verstappen can't lose. They can't bear the fact that they've lost.
"That came from his dad," said Christian Horner, who raced against Verstappen's mother in karting. His mother was a racer. He has the aggression of his dad and mother.
Not everything was passed down from father to son.
"Max has the racing skills, but he has the social side of his mother." Max is in the middle of his father and mother.
He would not be a good racer if he was too kind or too much of a girl. He would be the same sort of race driver as Jos if he were too much like him. He is in the middle.
Max is the son of Jos. He was guided to become the driver. But he's not a person named Jos.
Max is short with people. He said he might headbutt someone if journalists kept asking him why, after he had had incidents in all the first six races of the season.
He is a different character than his father.
He's always been relaxed when I put pressure on him. "He said it would be fine, don't worry." He's like that now.
Max says that his dad was a bit worried that he couldn't be bothered or that he was too relaxed. This is the way I like it and how I approach to get into a race weekend.
He was worried about it up until F1, but he could see that he couldn't affect my preparation. My dad is more excited about the F1 weekend than I am. I get so many things from my dad, and I am like, "I will find out when I get to the track."
This answer was given by Max in an interview. I mentioned it to him.
"He doesn't feel the pressure, that's what it is," says Jos. He doesn't even think about it.
He thinks that if his car is fast, he will win the championship. I will finish second.
Everybody sees how talented he is. All the teams want Max at the end of the day. That makes us feel comfortable as well.
Max has become a sensation in the Netherlands. For some years now, races held in central Europe have been mobbed by Dutch fans, all wearing T-shirts in the national colour of orange, all supporting Verstappen with a fervour that matches, at least, that shown for
The Dutch Grand Prix was back on the calendar this year as the historic seaside resort of Zandvoort held a race for the first time in 30 years. F1 wanted to cash in on the Verstappen phenomenon. It was a huge success.
There was a national party in honor of Verstappen for four days. The town was festooned with Verstappen banners. The stands were packed with as many people as the authorities would allow. House music was played all day at the track. The fans let off flares of orange support Verstappen. He repaid them with a pole position and victory.
The Dutch people are very enthusiastic about Max. Five years ago, the Dutch community was behind the national football team. All of these people are behind Max. They forgot about football.
Why did he cause such a reaction?
"We don't like the polished world champion," Van Amersfoort says. The guy fighting for it is raw. We like bull fighters. The Verstappens are like that.
