Jos Verstappen was the Lewis Hamilton of 1994. He was thrust into Formula 1 in a car capable of winning the championship as second driver to a world star at the height of his powers. However, while Hamilton matched Fernando Alonso for performance and race wins in 2007, Verstappen was wild and wilted in champion-elect Michael Schumacher’s shadow.
Brief early racing career
Verstappen made his F1 debut having previously only started 52 motor races. Outstanding in karts, he dominated the 1992 Benelux Formula Opel Lotus Championship in his maiden season racing cars. He joined Opel Team WTS for the 1993 German Formula 3 Championship and won that title at the first attempt as well. Victory in the Marlboro Masters at Zandvoort seemed to confirm a new star.
Formula 1 with Benetton
He impressed in a test with Arrows and signed a long-term deal initially as Benetton’s reserve driver for the 1994 F1 season. However, he was drafted into the race team when J.J.Lehto was injured before the season had begun. Ninth on the grid for his debut in the Brazilian Grand Prix, the Dutchman’s F1 career began with a bang. He crashed into Eddie Irvine’s Jordan-Hart and was sent barrel-rolling out of the race with the Irishman banned for three races as a consequence.
The fit-again Lehto returned but failed to impress so Verstappen was restored to the race team from the French GP. Engulfed in a frightening pitstop fire in Germany, he did well to finish third in the next two GPs in Hungary and Belgium. However, that was not enough to save his future as a top-line F1 star.
Subsequent F1 opportunities
Dropped for the final two races of the year, Verstappen began 1995 at the back of the field with Simtek. The Dutchman showed some flashes of promise before the team ran out of sponsorship and closed.
Indefatigable, Verstappen returned with Tom Walkinshaw’s Footwork Arrows FA17-Hart in 1996. The Argentine GP provided the highlight with Verstappen qualifying seventh and finishing sixth on a rare occasion he lasted the distance.
He spent an unhappy season with Tyrrell a year later before replacing Jan Magnussen at Stewart-Ford mid-way through 1998. Those final two years yielded little except for frustration and an eighth place finish in the 1997 Monaco GP.
Return to Arrows and Minardi finale
After a year away – in which he tested for Honda as it considered a return to F1 – Verstappen was announced as lead driver for the ambitious Orange-sponsored Arrows team for 2000. He normally qualified well and finished fifth in Canada and fourth in Italy to remind onlookers of his skill and speed.
However, his sixth place in Austria was the only point scored by Arrows during a frustrating second season with the team. Verstappen spent a year away from F1 once more before returning in 2003 to soldier on with the back-of-the-grid Minardi PS03-Cosworth.
Life after Grand Prix racing
His F1 career ended with a whimper and was a far cry from his much-hyped arrival. Verstappen still maintained fanatical support that few could match. Everywhere he raced there was a large contingent of orange-clad vocal Dutchmen and that continued when he switched to A1GP in 2005. He won at Durban during the series’ inaugural campaign but Verstappen quit on the eve of the second season after a financial dispute with his team.
It was three years before he raced again with Van Merksteijn Motorsport’s LMP2 Porsche RS Spyder in the 2008 Le Mans Series. He won the class in that year’s Le Mans 24 Hours and four of the five championship rounds to clinch the LMP2 title as well.
He retired from racing in 2012, just as his son Max began to emerge as a future star in karting.
