Max Verstappen finally speaks out on father Jos blanking Sergio Perez

F1 season preview as Max Verstappen looks to defend world title

Max Verstappen has addressed video footage showing his father, Jos, appearing to blank Sergio Perez after the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The reigning double world champion described his dad’s actions as ‘completely normal’, owing to their famed competitive nature.

Many drivers would be pleased with a job well done if they started a Grand Prix in 15th – due to a mechanical failure in qualifying – and pulled it back to take second place. That’s exactly what Verstappen did, with his Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez clinching the win.

That levelled things up at one victory apiece at that point in the season, which didn’t please Verstappen. His father, Jos – a former F1 ace in his own right – was not happy either as footage showed him gazing thoughtfully into the distance while Perez celebrated his victory.

Awkwardly for Jos, he was positioned right next to Perez’s team as they embraced the Mexican, but he did not even offer a hand in congratulations to his son’s team-mate.

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Max didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, however. “Obviously, my father is my biggest fan,” he told Motorsport.com. “I don’t like to lose and neither does my father. That’s how we grew up, but they always show the wrong pictures of course.

“Look: Checo [Perez] gets out of the car and wants to celebrate with his mechanics, which is quite normal. But another father does not belong to that party, of course. Therefore my father did not get in there.

“I think something like that is completely normal, even if some people don’t see it that way. But that’s OK, so those people just don’t see it that way. At the end of the day, we have to focus on ourselves and not on what the Twitter community thinks.”

Verstappen went on to get his own back in the very next race, storming to victory in a chaotic Australian Grand Prix as Perez, who started from the pit-lane, had to make do with fifth. The Mexican also addressed the awkward encounter with Jos after his Saudi triumph, but ultimately made light of the situation.

“I have a good relationship with Jos,” he insisted. “We respect each other. We know this is sport, and that is how we treat it. We shook hands but they probably didn’t show that.

“I saw a few things were written on social media, but sometimes people like to create stories that don’t exist. He wasn’t smiling much but you don’t have to smile every day and all the time.”

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