Jos Verstappen denies he ‘abused’ Max by leaving him at petrol station

Former F1 racer Verstappen left his then 14-year-old son at a petrol station in the south of Italy after the youngster had crashed out of a major karting championship race in 2012. 

• “I needed it" - Max Verstappen defends father Jos Verstappen's “harsh” treatment

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’. 

“People 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 to arrive at the top of a sport.”

Verstappen told ESPN 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 overtaken that in that same lap I tried to pass the guy back in a place which is just totally unnecessary.

“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 started to try to talk to him afterwards in the van, trying to travel home for 17 hours.

“He didn’t want to talk to me. And at one point, he was just so fed up with it. He said ‘get out’. He stopped at the fuel station, he was like ‘you get out’. And then he drove off.”

Verstappen’s manager, Raymond 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 to be successful. End of story'."