Jos
Verstappen

Jos Verstappen was born in Montfort on 4 March 1972 and grew up in the Dutch province of Limburg. He started karting at the age of eight, became Dutch junior champion in 1984 and won European titles in two kart classes in 1989. At the end of 1991 he moved into car racing, starting in Formula Opel Lotus. In 1993, his first season in German Formula Three, he won the championship and the Masters of Formula 3.

He joined Benetton as a test driver in 1994 and made his Formula One debut in the opening race in Brazil, standing in for the injured JJ Lehto alongside Michael Schumacher. He returned to the car after the Canadian Grand Prix and finished third in Hungary, the first Dutch driver to take a Formula One podium. A second third place followed in Belgium, after Schumacher was disqualified from the result. He finished tenth in the championship. Johnny Herbert drove in his place in the last two races of the year.

In 1995 he was entered for five races with Simtek and started four of them, before the team stopped competing after the Monaco Grand Prix. At Footwork in 1996 he finished sixth in Argentina and ended the year 16th in the standings. In 1997 he moved to Tyrrell and scored no points, his best result being eighth in Monaco. In 1998 he replaced Jan Magnussen at Stewart from the French Grand Prix, again without scoring. In 1999 he was a test driver for the Honda project. He returned to the grid with Arrows in 2000, scored points in Canada and finished fourth at Monza, and ended the season 12th in the championship. In 2001 he took a point for Arrows with sixth place at the A1-Ring and finished 18th overall. He had no race seat in 2002. His final Formula One season came with Minardi in 2003, with ninth place in Canada as his best result and 22nd in the standings. In total he made 106 starts, took two podiums and scored 17 championship points.

In the 2005-06 season he drove for the Netherlands team in A1 Grand Prix and won the feature race in Durban. In 2008 he won the LMP2 class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the LMP2 drivers' title in the Le Mans Series with Van Merksteijn in a Porsche RS Spyder. He returned to Le Mans in 2009 in a Lola-Aston Martin. In rallying he entered the Ypres Rally in 2022 and the European Rally Championship in 2025. From 2002 he coached and managed his son Max in karting. Max went on to be Formula One World Champion from 2021 to 2024.

Source: Wikipedia, “Jos Verstappen”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.