Jos Verstappen from disappointment in Wolff: ‘There is no more click’

Jos Verstappen rules out a possible collaboration with Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff. Together with manager Raymond Vermeulen and Max Verstappen, he sometimes talked to the Austrian and his team, but in 2021 Wolff turned out to be a different man than Jos thought he was talking to. According to him, the personal relationship with the Mercedes CEO has deteriorated to such an extent that a switch to the team from Brackley is no longer an option under his rule.

Jos looks at The Limburger back on Verstappen’s career so far. The Limburger started his time in F1 with Toro Rosso, before making the switch to the top team, Red Bull Racing after just over a year. A lot has changed since then. His son has grown up, Jos sees: ‘He now has his own life, lives independently and more often draws his own plan. Letting go sometimes hurts, but that seems logical to me as a father. Max isn’t someone who communicates a lot anyway.’

“Sometimes I think: come on, involve me more, inform me a bit more,” admits the former Arrows driver. ‘On the other hand, it is also his strength. I may not always like that, but he performs.’ As long as the form on the track is good, Jos knows he can’t complain. That’s why he lets the 24-year-old do his thing. Every now and then he joins the circuit to experience a race.

That has been different in the past. In the early years, Red Bull mainly wanted Jos to show his head in the garage. ‘In the beginning Helmut Marko wanted me to be there to keep control’, Jos continues. “At the end of his first Red Bull year, I noticed I had to take a step back.” As a result, he started traveling less with the Red Bull driver.

Max and Jos Verstappen consult with Wolff and Mercedes

In recent years, Verstappen’s management, as well as the Dutchman himself, has sometimes talked with title competitor Mercedes. However, the current title race has revealed that the team’s leader Wolff is not the man the Verstappens hoped he was. “There have been conversations with Toto Wolff and I also thought we had a good relationship with him, but the real Toto has shown itself lately. There is no click anymore.’

‘Mercedes was of course a leader for many years. Now they are cornered for the first time and you see another Toto. It’s a shame, but that’s how you get to know people’, he concludes. The criticism of the Mercedes team boss does not come out of the blue. After the collision at Silverstone, the Verstappens indicated that they found it disrespectful how Mercedes celebrated victory after Lewis Hamilton drove his title competitor into hospital. A potential collaboration between Verstappen and Mercedes is therefore definitively off the track.