Love him or loathe him, that Max Verstappen is the best Formula 1 driver in the world right now isn’t really up for debate.
Nine grand prix victories and a fourth straight world title sewn up this year – despite his Red Bull team falling back in the pecking order as the season progressed – he’s looked, at times, untouchable.
But what if we told you his 2024 winning percentage is actually lower than his own father’s. Max comes in at 37.5%; Jos at 38.88%.
Mic drop!
As you’ll have gathered given the corner of the internet I occupy, I’m one of rallying’s biggest advocates. But even I am not going to pretend that national rallies in Belgium and the Netherlands are as intense as Formula 1.
However that facetious statistic does home in on a very serious question: just how good is Jos Verstappen, the rally driver?
The 52-year-old is far from the only former F1 racer to turn his attention to rallying. Kimi Räikkönen and Robert Kubica are the most famous examples who competed at the top of the World Rally Championship (to varying degrees of success), but today we are still seeing former circuit racing drivers enjoy a career renaissance such as Heikki Kovalainen with his pair of Japanese titles.
So which is Verstappen? A Kovalainen or a Räikkönen?
Verstappen and Jamoul's latest win came - fittingly enough - at the Spa Rally
Despite the lack of titles (yet), evidence suggests he’s a Kovalainen. Maybe even better. The Dutchman’s progress since first getting behind the wheel of a rally car in 2022 has been stunning – rising into a victory-contending driver nearly everywhere he goes.
Don’t take my word for it. Instead, here are those of Renaud Jamoul – formerly Adrien Fourmaux’s co-driver and now the one strapped into Verstappen’s Škoda Fabia RS Rally2.
“For sure he has done very well,” Jamoul tells DirtFish. “When we started together two years ago, I think at that time he had done seven races [before], and from the first testing we’ve done together, he was driving at nearly same pace as Stéphane Lefebvre with the same car on the test road that he knows at that time.
“And for me, immediately, I felt like he missed just the experience, and especially with the pacenotes, to know where he was going. Because as soon as he knows the road or the track, he can do well. He has the handling of the car, he has the car control and the speed, and he was just missing the experience.
“That’s why we started together and tried to build on this experience with notes and knowledge about rally. In the beginning, it was not easy for him to understand that every stage is not like a qualifying stage. You have to build up the race and sometimes you are not the fastest. You have to accept it sometimes, and keep going and try to be better on the next one, but sometimes you are not the best on every stage.”
Verstappen's 2024 program has been predominantly Belgian and asphalt based
Adapting to rallying’s nuances is usually the stumbling block for those far more used to physically racing other cars than simply just the clock. Stage evolution is one thing, but listening to the co-driver and the notes they are calling – and actually trusting what they are saying – takes time to get used to.
As does what’s often referred to as ‘rally craft’. Racing drivers are intrinsically trained to be fastest in every session, in every race. But as Jamoul says, being fastest on every single stage isn’t always the key in rallying. However the Belgian is impressed with how quickly Verstappen has got his head around that.
“It took a few races, but as an example last year we went to Germany in August – it was his first time outside Belgium or Netherlands and I think it was maximum two passes on recce. I told him, ‘OK, now you have to trust what you have done and just drive and listen to the pacenotes’.
“And it worked quite well because we were… OK, not fighting with the Germans because we know that people like [Marijan] Griebel, they are really fast on their home soil. But we were not too bad compared to them. And from that point, he realized, ‘OK, if I’m doing a good job doing recce, then I can push harder during the race’.
“And we started to build a new pacenote system, tried to make some more details and started working with gravel crew, because in Belgium you can have a gravel crew. And all those details together make him better and stronger.
“And now, for him, he said, ‘When I’m sitting in the car, I hear the notes, I do what the notes are saying. That’s quite automatic now’.”
The Belgian championship throws up plenty of challenging conditions
The results show it. The Belgian championship is one of the most competitive around but Verstappen has become a regular stage winner, podium finisher and even rally winner.
His final event of the season, the Spa Rally just a few weeks ago, was a great demonstration of Verstappen’s current level, where he and Jamoul outsmarted this year’s Belgian champions.
“I think we were the only one not making any mistake,” Jamoul explains. “And on Sunday morning, the road was frozen at some point and temperatures were below zero. And he asked me, ‘What do we do with tires?’ He wanted to go with a softer, slick compound. I said, ‘No, I think for me, the best choice is to go with the rain tire’.
“He said, ‘Yeah, but it’s dry’. I said, ‘Yes, but it’s so cold that with a soft tire, you won’t get the grip from the beginning of the stage. I think it’s better to go with the rain tire’. He said, ‘OK, you decide. I drive with your choice’. So we went with the rain tire, and [Cédric] Cherain did a mistake in the first one on an icy patch.
“We took the lead, and he said, ‘Yeah, now I will trust you all the time with the tire choice!’. But we have a really good cooperation. We are at least every day texting or calling each other to try to improve and think about what we can do for next year, can we do a little bit more with the dampers, what can we do with the setup, with the pacenotes.
“He’s really, really pushing.”
Jos gave up the chance to watch Max become world champion in order to prepare for his next rally
Clearly, this is no casual pastime for Verstappen. It would perhaps be a stretch to claim it’s a new career for him, but he’s taking it extremely seriously.
“I think more [seriously] than anybody can expect from him,” Jamoul concurs.
“Because, for example, the weekend before Spa, it was Formula 1 in Vegas. He was supposed to go to Vegas. And then he told me, ‘I will not go to Vegas because I want to prepare Spa really well. I know if I’m going to Vegas, I will have jet lag. And then probably Max will become world champion. So then we will have a party and then when I’m back in Europe I will be destroyed and not fit for the race so I will not go to Vegas, I want to prepare for Spa and be as fit as possible for Spa.'”
That’s dedication – and victory was just reward for that.
For next season, Verstappen’s target is to win the Belgian championship but his program will also feature “a few other events in different countries” as he wants to experience new events – and return to ones he’s previously enjoyed like Switzerland’s Rallye du Valais.
Verstappen has dabbled with gravel, taking part in Wales’ Severn Valley Stages in April, but Tarmac will remain the primary focus.
“He wants to do as much as possible, but first the target is the Belgian championship,” Jamoul shares. “And then when we succeed in the Belgian championship, maybe we try another step like going in France for the full championship or maybe European championship, but for sure not WRC. That’s 100% sure.”
And that suits Jamoul just fine, who has refound his love for rallying since partnering with Verstappen.
“When I stopped the partnership with Fourmaux in 2021, I was a bit fed up with rallying because the way WRC is going at the moment is not the way I like doing rallying,” he admits.
Jamoul enjoys rally life more with Verstappen than he did in WRC with Fourmaux
“We spend so much time watching videos after recce, I was having dinner every day alone in my room because I had to clean the pacenotes and go watch the videos with him. It was such hard work and OK, we had a good time inside the car when we were on the stages, but the surrounding was not the way I like rallying.
“From now with [Verstappen], it’s so much different. We are doing it as much as possible as a professional, but we are still having fun. After recce, we go to a nice restaurant, have a glass of wine, a good meat, and then we go again the day after for the second day of recce.
“It’s not about having a headache every night. It’s about enjoying and going with other drivers for dinner, having good fun with the people. That’s the way I like rallying, like it was in the past.”
But what is Verstappen’s ultimate potential? How far could he realistically go in rallying?
“I must say, he surprised me already quite a few times!” Jamoul laughs.
“When we started together two years ago, the pace was around 1.2 seconds per kilometer slower than the best Belgian driver. I think one year later, we were already fighting for the victory. And now, we have the pace to fight everywhere in Belgium, even when he discovered the race, like it was in Wallonie in April. It was his first time, and straight from the beginning, he was on it…”
Jamoul pauses: “I think he can perform very well even at the highest level, but he will miss the experience. If we go, for example, for the European Championship, for sure the first year, it will be difficult. When you go to Roma for the first time, those guys have so much more experience.
“At some point, I think if we do two years in a row on European Championship, maybe we can fight for the podium. But it will be for sure difficult. But as I said, he already surprised me a few times, so why not?”
That’s where my line of questioning ends, but Jamoul has one more topic he’d like to address.
Is the sky the limit for Verstappen's rallying ambitions?
“For me the most important [thing] about him is that Jos is not the guy that you can see on television,” he says. “He’s so much different.
“I mean, the Formula 1 media made him such a bad guy, a bad face. But he’s not. He’s really, really an enjoyable driver to work with. And he’s really nice with the people around us. As soon as you have his trust, then he is so good with the mechanics, with the engineers, with the team. With me, he’s such a real gentleman, you know? Always thinking about my son; bringing him presents.
“He’s so good, so different than what you can expect when you see him on the TV.
“The thing is he is so dedicated,” Jamoul adds, “he was so dedicated for his son. He always wants the best, so never mind how to get it. He wants the best. And he’s honest. That’s maybe a bit different from the people in Formula 1. He’s honest.
“If he doesn’t like you, he’ll tell you right in the eyes. Not so many people can deal with that, but he’s straightforward and honest. When he’s doing a mistake while driving the car, I tell him in the car. And he said, ‘I like it. Not so many people can get angry against me, but you can because I trust you and you have the experience. So when I’m doing a mistake, just shout at me’.
“For us, there is nothing we can’t say to the other. If I’m doing bad, he will tell me. If he’s doing bad, I will tell him. And we like it.”
