Jos and F1
In the early 1990s Jos Verstappen was considered a rising star in motorsport, after winning Formula Opel and German Formula 3.
At just 21 years old he was contested by McLaren and Benetton, two of the best teams of the time, who set their sights on him and offered him the role of test driver.
Jos gave in to the flattery of Flavio Briatore, who put in writing that by the end of 1995 he would have competed in at least 6 GPs with the Treviso team.
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JJ Letho’s injury during winter testing opened the Benetton garage to him for a race weekend already in the first two rounds of 1994 and then again on eight occasions towards the end of the season. Jos Verstappen’s year alongside Michael Schumacher was anything but simple, with accidents, spins, two podiums and 10 points overall.
Briatore preferred the safe bet Johnny Herbert and from then on Jos Verstappen’s career was a slow decline, bouncing between Simtek, Footwork, Tyrrell, Stewart and Arrows.
Jos Verstappen and the role of Ferrari test driver
In February 2002 he was surprisingly dropped by Arrows – who chose Heinz-Harald Frentzen in his place – and Jos did not hide his disappointment: “I am deeply disappointed. Yesterday morning Huub Rothengatter saw on the Arrows website that they had chosen Frentzen. He immediately called me and Raymond Vermeulen, we didn’t know what to say. Then Walkinshaw called us an hour and a half later: ten seconds to say he had made a different choice. Half an hour later I received the fax with the immediate termination notice.”
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Jos Verstappen was furious, because a few weeks earlier he had refused an offer from Ferrari to join the Maranello team as a test driver.
The proposal came from a very well-known face: “Who wouldn’t want to drive for Ferrari? I am a good friend of Michael, we go on vacation together and often travel to GPs. We talked about the new season informally and Michael asked me about my possible availability“.
However, Verstappen had an existing contract with Arrows, with an extension signed in mid-2001. This circumstance led the Dutchman to decline the Ferrari offer, then soon after he was left without a seat in F1.
Verstappen tried – unsuccessfully – to get a test driver role at Sauber, racing one more year in Formula 1 with Minardi in 2003 before leaving the top motorsport category with just 17 points scored in 106 GPs.
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