Jos Verstappen commented on the conflict between his son Max, a two-time world champion, and Sergio Perez, his Red Bull teammate. Verstappen Sr. claims his son has been “portrayed as the bogeyman” as a result of Max Verstappen’s defiance of team directives to let Perez through on the final lap of the Brazilian Grand Prix.
Going into this season’s last race in Abu Dhabi, Perez and Charles Leclerc of Ferrari are battling for second position in the driver’s standings. Because Verstappen had already won championship, the team instructed him to let Perez claim his sixth place position as the Mexican was just one position behind him in the Brazilian Grand Prix.
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The Dutchman, however, defied the instructions and, when questioned: “What happened?” through the team radio. He responded: “I told you already last summer, you guys don’t ask that again to me. Are we clear about that? I gave my reasons and I stand by it.”
Verstappen’s response is said to have been about Perez’s crash at the Monaco Grand Prix, which caused qualifying to be red-flagged and hampered his teammate’s performance. The Mexican went on to win the Grand Prix after placing ahead of Verstappen the next day as a result of the crash in Monaco.
Jos Verstappen claimed the conflict caused his son to nearly miss this season’s final race in Abu Dhabi because he had been portrayed very badly as the “bogeyman.” Verstappen Sr. revealed: “I’m not enjoying myself and I’m working on it all week” in an interview with the Dutch newspaper De Limburger.
He added: “That’s how I work. Max was portrayed as the bogeyman, even though that is unjustified. When my wife says something to me, I don’t hear it. That’s how busy I am with it. That will always be the case. I doubted whether I would come to this race, but I got on the plane anyway.”
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In the media briefing, Max Verstappen also expressed his opinion, claiming that following the event in Brazil last week, he had read some “pretty disgusting” comments.
He said: “So all the things that I’ve read is pretty disgusting. And also, even more than that, they started attacking my family. They were threatening my sister and my mum, my girlfriend, my dad and for me, that goes way too far.”
“Well, you don’t even have the facts, of what actually was going on and that definitely has to stop. If you have a problem with me, that’s fine, but don’t go after my family because that is just unacceptable. But we move on.”
