Jos Verstappen feels British people think his son Max Verstappen is an a**hole

Max Verstappen and the British sphere of F1 have often had their fair share of tussles, and now, his father, Jos Verstappen, has shared the Britishers' alleged perspective of the reigning champion. Over the years, the Red Bull driver has called out his portrayal within British media and has had a long-standing feud that has gone on and off in the past year or so.

Last year, Verstappen saw multiple feuds with various sections of the F1 paddock. He was left riled up after FIA had penalised him for swearing in an F1 press conference, and had back and forth with the British section, often jibing back at his biased claims.

On the other hand, the Dutchman's journey up through the field in F1 was marked with multiple such instances. This led to a tarred portrayal of the four-time champion in the racing landscape, which was called out by Jos Verstappen, who shared how such a perception is not in line with his son's actual behavior, as he told De Telegraaf:

"I think that a lot of people, maybe especially the British, have a wrong image of him. That he's an a**hole, or something. Perhaps that's also due to the present time with social media. But I absolutely do not recognize that."

Meanwhile, Max Verstappen has won two races in the 2025 season, despite Red Bull sitting fourth in the constructors' championship.

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Jos Verstappen is behind Max Verstappen's ability to get up to speed at racetracks in a jiff

Jos Verstappen (L) and Max Verstappen (R) at the 2025 F1 Grand Prix of Hungary race weekend - Source: Getty

Max Verstappen is often commended for his ability to extract a substantial amount of potential from the machine he is provided with. Moreover, the Dutchman quickly gets up to speed during a race weekend, from where he looks on to fine-tune the setup to get the car in the perfect window come raceday.

However, this ability could be traced back to Jos Verstappen's instructions to his son, when the young Dutchman used to race karts, as the four-time champion revealed in his interaction with Chris Harris on Ford Performance's video:

"Normally, the goal is to get it within five laps. That's what my dad always taught me when I was a kid in a kart. He said that you need to immediately be at the limit, have good lap times, because sometimes you can hit the track and just drive to see what happens, but my father always said, 'No, we're going on the track and we have to be on top immediately.'"

On the other hand, Max Verstappen is the only repeat winner in the 2025 season apart from the McLaren duo of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.