Jos Verstappen to take part in Rally Belgium this weekend

It is a prestigious guest who slipped into the list of participants of the next rally, counting for the 2022 world championship. The former pilot of Formula 1 and father of the reigning world champion Max Verstappen, I named Jos, is preparing to start the Rally of Belgium, organized this weekend around Ypres in Wallonia.

“We really love rallying”

Although he spent most of his career racing in F1, Jos Verstappen arrives on terrain that circuit drivers have always appreciated. He is not the first to try it, since before him, Kimi Räikkönen, Robert Kubica or even Valtteri Bottas tried their luck in the discipline, with more or less success. The 50-year-old driver has, in any case, a well-defined approach and learning process, as he explains before the big departure.

“I always loved watching the rally, declared Jos Verstappen on the sidelines of the Rally of Belgium. When you see it on television, it’s always very spectacular. I first drove a rally car maybe a year and a half ago and of course from there you always want more. So we started doing a few events with the Rally2 car and DG Sport, and then Ypres came along. This is why we are here. »

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The Dutchman will start the Belgian round at the wheel of a Citroën C3 Rally2. And if he has experienced throughout his career, the piloting of a car, one of the biggest differences he notes, is obviously the presence of a co-pilot alongside him. A task that will be carried out by Harm van Koppen this weekend.

“We really love rallying and we are here to learn, He says. I'm 50 but I'm still learning a lot and I need this experience. I really had to learn that someone was talking to me. When I was in single-seaters, I didn't like the engineer talking to me during the race – and now they talk to me all the time!

I had to get used to it, but it was really difficult at first to understand what everything means and what to do. On a rally you are busy all the time and you have to drive fast. When someone is talking in your ear all the time, it can be a little distracting at first, but you have to stay focused on what needs to be done and that sort of thing. It's a little better now and I think the more you do it, the more you learn. »

While obviously the fifty-year-old is not there to vie for a place in the general standings, her main challenge will be to finish the rally without incident. It would already be a first victory for Father Verstappen, who will one of these four, when time permits, take his son in his suitcases, who knows!