CarNext.com presents: Keeping Up with the Verstappens, ft. David Coulthard

hello i'm david coulthard a former grand prix driver and courtesy of carnx.com we have a fantastic opportunity to challenge a father and son formula one jew on the difference between formula one in the past and today so i've got joss verstappen someone that i raced against don't think we crashed together or maybe we did no we were thanked we were fine together and max verstappen current racer for rebel racing so gentlemen let's get straight into it so one of the common things that people would ask is that you know a driver wouldn't be able to cut it in my time now max do you really think that you would be as good in your father in ice time oh it's difficult different cars you know yeah to be honest i think if you're good you can adapt to any car if it's a formula one car or like a gt car you just have to adapt to the situation and even now i mean when i started in 2015 to the car we have now is quite different so also the way you were driving it was quite different so i guess yeah you adjust yourself to it hopefully when i look at uh like in-car footage today and i look at in-car footage from when we were racing and even before us when you go back to the senate times when the manual shifts there was so much kickback in the steering it looked physically more difficult so yes you you do occasionally jump in some modern let's say sports touring shoes gt cars i think it was definitely more physically i mean for your arms and things like that i think the g-forces they do today i think they're higher than an hour time but knowing him i think he would uh have adapted to a to uh to the cars at our time let's say like that so they were moving around a lot more though yeah they were like even more straight i think they were more nervous than now if you see you know it's like you know small oversteer but we are fighting the car more also i think because they were not so balanced as there were uh those days so uh uh but i think definitely more challenging at our time yeah i would agree with that i think that even the straights were quite difficult or certainly the way i drove the car was moving around a lot depending on the night before depending on the night before yeah because yeah but it's different time also when you see the santa thing going like this on shifting and you know it was uh tough therefore i think so i think we can agree then that physically the g-force especially in qualifying is much higher today you look at the lap times you've got big wings big tires but i think that we would also agree that the actual race in our period was maybe more difficult because the cars moved more and we had lighter cars you know you're 730 kilograms or whatever the regulation is today we were 605 kilos maybe even lighter if you were with you know tomorrow control and arrows sometimes they were running below the limit but they were racy small cars and without the power steering i think i sometimes had a very hard time i think brazil was for me the the toughest no power steering left-hand circuit it was very difficult yeah i used to wear a neck strap under my arm i never did that you just rested it just leaning and leaning on it but even on the breaking down i had to come up and then make the corner but then because your neck is tired your shoulders are tired you know it goes down i couldn't even move anymore after the race so you know your your career was you didn't always have the best car you started with a very good team and then after that it became a bit more challenging it could be worse than mars physically where do you think you were at that time because we know max is an athlete we see him training we see all the work that the young modern drivers do i was probably a crossover point where i had a professional trainer where were you you always looked strong but were you yeah but i didn't have the trainer at home at the time so i i was relying on myself what i knew about it but it's definitely not as professional as the work they do today because they have the trainer around they do the test before the season during the season after the season so they know exactly where you are physically but we haven't done any tests you know if you had to do a test you had to do for yourself i did it a few times but i don't know how physically good i was but i always have problems with my neck because i always have the g-forces i couldn't stand that well but he he never complains about his neck so i think physically you've got a big neck sorry no but i i don't know i uh for sure the work they do now is so much more professional than at my time so physically you you always look like you could go again i don't think i've actually seen you look tired at the end of a grand prix so would you say that's down to the modern cars like your father saying with uh you know power steering or is it just that your capacity to deal with what's going on like everything in sport it evolves over time yeah i guess i guess it's a bit of both i mean to run even in like f3 or whatever i never really struggled um but for sure the power steering helps a lot because it takes a lot of force away from the shoulders and of course when the shoulders get tight it's going through your neck that helps but i think also the way of training my neck um these days i think you know i have like this kind of harness and it seems like it's very effective you can do all different kinds of rotations so it seems like that is working quite well um but yeah i mean some people just struggle a bit more with their neck even if they train very hard it just depends also on the length of your neck and of course how heavy your head is but drivers are big breeze but it it does make a difference but yeah luckily uh no no issues there so you actually harmless you put a big strap to you to your head yeah it's like a device you put on your head and you can basically like that thing can go 360 degrees i mean not that i can do that but at least you can turn it around in all different kind of ways you can do all different kind of movements and that seems to work well very impressive the only time i've ever had any sort of straps and what have you is purely for the bedroom but anyway that's a different interview so now just focusing on where we are in formula one today and i'm interested yes first of all from you because i have some views on on some of the regulations in in formula one so if you looking today your son out on track putting that to one side what would be a regulation that you would change in modern formula one that either takes us back to where we were or takes us forward if you have a vision probably take it somewhere in the middle but all the buttons they have to change during a lap and charging battery and things like that i don't like that so much no that's i prefer that the one i we had to in my time let's say that it's too much sometimes i'm listening to this radio i don't understand what they're talking about i'm just saying i just no but it's too much you know they have to change so many things and i think it should go back a bit more normal let's say that yeah so in an average lap you would always have to adjust something in the cockpit to do with harvesting power deployment in in the race for example i mean you have different modes with the the battery level so i know the modes where you know it's sustainable so it just stays at a similar level throughout the lap so um but then also let's say with two laps ago or whatever you can go to a different mode and it will drain the battery slowly so it's just you read through what they tell you of course with and of course i mean i'm in the at the team now for my fifth year so you know exactly how it works uh because even when we swapped engines we kept the same kind of operating uh in the team which i think is good but yeah i mean i would prefer that it's just a normal engine you can go flat out you don't need to worry about certain engine modes and you can just uh push do you ever get battery anxiety like we do with our mobile phones so that that doesn't happen well sometimes you know when you retire the car you're like should i jump out without touching or should i just you know stuff like that when they order when they're working on the car but no electric shocks or luckily not good um another thing that you would kill you if you get it if you get it in formula one yeah it would kill you you're dead yeah well i guess on the upside you only die once so yeah yeah and we we you know unless you do it in a good way one of the the modern regulations brought into play to try and improve the racing is drs so we know we've got the hybrid engines we had to do old school which was to get yourself into a slipstreaming position drs you just accept it's there and it's a benefit or well we have to at the moment with the cards we have for you because once you're within like two and a half three seconds you already start to lose down for so when you're within one second the car loses like 70 80 percent of its downforce so it's incredible like it's a completely different car it's almost like very like uncontrollable as well because you have the cars just moving around a lot so that's the only way of overtaking toronto's at the moment of course i would like to to see it without but i think then you have to change the cars a lot by because i think they are really wide at the moment i think we should go back to a bit more of a narrow car and the car is also very long so i i honestly prefer the cars how they were like 2006 2007 i think that was a very beautiful car it's interesting isn't it that he's winning he's successful in formula one today but there was something about you know even beyond our era that was quite special about formula one light narrow racy cars engines noise yeah v10 would be nice yeah yeah well when did you race v10 i started with the v10 or you can had a v10 yeah yeah we had treatments yeah yeah and we that was good and we used to blow engines up in those days like proper bits of properties smoke and things like that when we were testing and let's for example in barcelona and you were sitting in your motor home and you hear a car going out with the noise that was you know the hair came you know up and now you can stay next track making a phone call it's no problem but our time was not possible and i think that's that was formula one well i like that i think it creates emotion isn't it like uh where was it when we were in mijello the old ferrari f1 car was on the track from 2004 i mean the car was slow on the straight compared to what we do but it's just incredible the noise like it just makes a formula one car i think yeah that's something what we miss at the moment yeah i think that there's not many other fans a formula one wouldn't agree with you it doesn't matter if you go 300 or 360. if you don't have the the sound of the engine and the emotion what it brings that's yeah i liken it to and i don't want to say anything inappropriate of course but it's a little bit like if you're if you're making love there has to be a certain natural soundtrack to that moment but if you make love in a caravan when your mom and dad are in the next room it's a bit different it's different so it's you know anyway so we agree more noise i like the comparison yeah thank you you know that people can relate to probably well caravans are they not very popular with the dutch yeah we had one in gokari yeah we did yeah they're very popular david yeah good better cabinet right moving on to the the next sort of statement to to challenge you here is that formula one should be about pushing the limits in every aspect and modern formula one we've touched on this a little bit now heavier you're going to manage battery you've got to manage starting with 100 kilograms of fuel so i'm picking up from our initial conversation that you would agree that modern formula one is more about managing than pushing 100 yeah i mean in the race now nowadays well you want to do a one stop because the problem is you can't really pass with these kind of cars on most of the tracks so what you do you just back it out of it you know that the guy behind will get stuck you just make sure you have the tire life to go to the end uh after you stop so and of course with some trucks we have to lift for fuel because the fuel tank is not big enough to go flat out all the time so i would of course always prefer to go flat out like we had in germany to be honest there was last like 12 laps low low fuel we we had new tires and then then you are pushing then you can see also the lap times were coming down and we were only two and a half three seconds i think off two two and a half of what we did in qualifying i think that's that's not too bad yeah well i think in our time then we would be within a couple of seconds of qualifying pace because the cars were lighter so i guess yeah no sort of fuel managed didn't we were shielding we had to push all the time yeah so that was good and that's how the racing should be you have to push and go to the limits it will also be better anymore the tires if the car is a lot lighter yep no we didn't i mean now is all the things about tire management fuel saving we didn't do anything any of that so the race started you went as quickly as you could yeah to the end when you mentioned refueling we couldn't chat to you without mentioning hockenheim when you lost your eyebrows briefly thankfully they look like they're back but that was when a refueling goes wrong so i guess that's one of the reasons they took it away but just because you lost your eyebrows that doesn't seem that they should have taken away from formula one completely no no i think it should be it should be there you know or i mean but at least you know go flat out all the time even when they run with 100 kilos of fuel you know if you have the tires and they shouldn't do about fuel saving or whatever you know i think it's racing it's formula one it's the highest in the world and they should go flat out all the time pushing the limits yeah i would definitely agree with that and watching the eu race i think you would definitely enjoy that because some of the they say the more uh height challenge drivers don't look as physically strong you know i i don't want to seem heightest but i've always you know and i don't know if you get it when people meet you they've seen you in television and you're a little bit taller than your father but i get it where people will say oh you're taller than i would imagine for a racing driver and i'll always say when in my time it was quite difficult to fit in the cars we didn't have the big cockpits that they have today but then i will always say that but the downside is that you struggle to fit in the cars while you race but the upside is when you retire you're not one of these little guys so yeah i think i'm i'm like i mean i'm 181 so it's yeah i'm fine but of course when you get to like 186 188 you struggle with your knees you know everything is of course going to become a bit tighter and also your feet can't be too big i guess i had a problem my feet were always too big i had to cut the top of the shoe off and things like that you know they say about a man with big feet i know that day so you're quite happy you had to cut the top of your boots yeah no that's a different time um in terms of weight again touching to our era if we were you know more than 75 kilos with our race helmet then we lost some performance with balance ballast on the car is it a weight issue for drivers today or can you be comfortably yeah because i mean the cars are very heavy it's very difficult for the teams to be on on the way target what the faa of course brings out um now nowadays is 80 kilos but your seat is included and your seat is almost two kilos like 1.92 kilos so you can be 78 i'm 78. so it's uh yeah it's on the edge yeah but i mean some drivers have their i don't know they're like 70 kilos 71 but they're also a 172 or 73 so they're a bit smaller yeah but then yeah the taller drivers they of course automatically are stronger on the limit yeah they're so little aren't they so most of them are so cute yeah anyway oh it's nothing compared to modded gp they are very small yeah that's quite impressive yeah marquez is tiny isn't it yeah but then you see how like strong they are yeah as a like it's impressive well when when you mention that so this actually this is a a small version of your race helmet but this is actually the the lando norris real size helmet is he's really is really that small or marc marquez and we can see a couple of helmets here we've got uh yoss's helmet from uh canada canada yeah was that a good thousand i don't know what was the sixth two thousand i think p5 must have been for the what is it for the football we did that european yeah it was a european championship i think they even the evening before they lost so they were out and i wear this yes yeah orange is a very popular color in your country yeah that's why that's why it's orange it's simple yes right moving on another one of the the statements here is that the drivers these days don't think for themselves but are hand puppets for the team now i wouldn't say that one because you're younger stronger taller and fitter and i don't want you to punch me but someone obviously thinks that you know the eras have changed whereas maybe the drivers were more outspoken in the past more individual your view on that first of all i i don't think you seem like anyone's controlling you like a puppet no definitely not not a puppet but i just i'm very straightforward i think sometimes yeah you maybe say to yourself maybe it's better to be a little bit quiet but i just i'm there to win you know and uh yeah if i wouldn't have that desire to be there and and just say ah it's fine then i think it's better to just stop because then the fire is not there you know you need to i want to win i want the best not i mean they expect me to do my best and i expect them to do their best and of course when one of the two is not performing well i mean they can tell me when i of course make a mistake which they have done in the past and it should be like that but at the end of the day you should be able to be critical to each other because that at the end of the day pushes you forward like if you are not able to talk to each other and be critical then what's the point of working together so yeah one of the things that i always say is that formula one doesn't have a blame culture it has a responsibility culture we own our mistakes what would you say yes from from your time i never remember you being sort of you know making a big scene or or a big complaint you're not in the in the position to do that i think i think when you're in a position to do that and you can speak up and speak out what you what you want to say i think i would have done that but i think uh those days some drivers are very they they say every everything the same the weekend in and out so but i think for maxi say what he thinks and in a prospective way and i think that's good you know it's also the emotions from drivers and teams that's where formula one is about isn't it so i think drivers have to stand up and say what i think i think is good for the sport good for everybody yeah i would i would definitely agree with that and i i think you know i've probably sat on the fence you know that expression where you don't say one thing or the other yeah during my mclaren times because i was always a little bit in fear that i could get fired yeah no i had the same you know you couldn't really say what you wanted to because you always fear that they drop you after that so that's why you you showed up yeah it is it is challenging um how much influence do you think that you have today versus our time because we didn't have so much data so the voice of the driver really would drive forward a direction with the engineers and designers do you still feel that you have that same level of of influence in the direction of how the car is developed uh well to be honest if they would let's say they would stick a new front wing on i don't need to look at the data to confirm i prefer of course i go out and say oh more understeer obviously or whatever it does more mid corner grip or whatever then the data is just for them to look at you know to confirm what i said because i i don't need to open my laptop you know to to say oh no it actually did that that would be wrong so uh it's it's what you practice already in in go-karting of course you didn't have wings but you can simulate different kind of things right so that's what my dad of course sometimes he would send me out he changed something but he wouldn't tell me what and then i had to feel what it was doing and i think that's how you get a good understanding of uh you know of new parts coming onto a car but you also told me if you don't feel anything don't say anything because don't lie that's that's the good thing and that's how formula one works you know you put something new in the car and to be honest you don't think they should limit the data as well because you know every driver oh he breaks you know it should be natural it should be his feeling against somebody else's feeling but now though you can really work towards you know to towards another driver and i think that should be and that's why i think in the time of nicki lauda or whatever that was perfect no data and it was really the the feeling of a driver and that makes you going much faster than another driver but those days you have so much data yeah under tell you oh there you have to break a couple of meters later and more entry people do the radio now during the race you know they are comparing i mean when they of course talk to me sometimes they tell me the mercedes cars or whatever doing this and that i'm like great nice but you know if you when you have the same car it's easier to compare but yeah i don't i don't really like anyway looking at the data i think at one point thread i mean when you just join formula one it's good because you need to learn a lot more but now you feel it you don't need to look at the data to to make card changes you go you speak to the engineer you feel exactly at least i have that with my engineer now that we don't need to look at how i'm going through a corners okay we just do this or that and yeah it's just little things yeah it works i don't need to open my laptop throughout throughout the weekend it's just i go to my engineer and i say okay a bit of oversight here a bit of honesty there can we solve it in this way and then he's like ah should we try that or this and then yeah that's because you're on the limit but also you feel and you know experience now and experience when i just joined red bull you don't know how the car works so you just listen a lot and you let them of course in the beginning try stuff and and then i know i just does that you know and at one point of course the car in terms of what you can change on the car doesn't really change a lot over the years so you know exactly what direction you want to go into of course you don't get it right all the time but like 95 of the time it works yeah so yes you came up through karting uh you're younger than me so you you came in a more competitive era of karting and you obviously got max into carting at a very early age do you find this was what you learned there that you carried into your recent career and what you taught max at that time because you had the benefit of being very good and very successful in karting is the the backbone of future success or do you think it's just part of the process i think it's part of the process but i think as a young guy they shouldn't start too early with data because they you have to learn it yourself you have to figure out the limit yourself did you have data logging on your card we're correct we we had as well with max did but you were recently yeah could i i never had data i think it started or when i went to formula three then they had a little bit of data i mean they should have our engine rpm and speed and things like that but not much more it's funny even in junior categories right the difference in countries of race teams where they come from some like germany or whatever german they look less data than let's say french when we were testing in two liter it was quite a big difference in how the teams are operating in terms of the amount of time you spend on track and some people would spend more time on looking at data i think we were a bit more of the let's just drive because you learned while driving because a lot of teams at that time oh they're looking at data for 45 minutes and i said to them i don't want that five minutes is fine but give them time on track but that's what they need they need to feel the car make changes do it you know but they were more into data and i said i mean you stop that you can look at the break right for 45 minutes but i'm not changing it am i if i'm looking at it i have to go out on track and and understand myself well i think that perfectly brings us to the next point where i think that i already have an idea of what your position will be so when it comes to factory simulators versus real life testing so the statement is that simulators in the factories are so good you don't need these practice sessions in formula one weekends anymore so i've got a feeling already what your answer is going to be we had a little bit of simulated technology in our career but nothing like today or you didn't have no oh i i had a bit of simulator and i didn't enjoy it at all so you never had that experience you get sick if he gets too if he's too close to the screen yeah i can't do it okay when i even when he was behind this playstation when he was young with its big screen in front of him when i sat in the same distance i had to go back because it was too close i got dizzy or it didn't feel good so i'm lucky that i'm uh luckily i didn't have that you're not a simulator guy you're definitely on track and what you just said about your f3 time now you famously have done a lot of simulator racing which is separate to this questions i guess more aimed at you know the advantages of teams that got very sophisticated simulator programs to develop the formula one car so let's separate the two things talk about your passion for gaming which clearly we're too old and and get nauseous he's not bad okay he has a simulator yeah yeah now i have a simulator so i do it sometimes but yes after one hour after one hour that's more than me yeah yeah i have one the secrets are coming in yeah thank you yeah no i have but i don't practice a lot not but when he does like you're just naturally good is that what you're saying oh no i needed a either the lap time you know so i have a reference and then uh it was within half a second on the spot with a gt car it's a long track i mean half a second it's not bad but that's why you know i wanted to be better on the gt car so i had to practice a little bit to come closer still competitive competition now but it's very important on the simulator as the feedback you get through the wheel because you don't have g-force so the better that motor is the more feedback you have and and it breaks the brake pedal that is uh where you get your lap time from um yeah i think still i run a very stiff brake pedal to some let's say other sim like proper sim drivers but that's because i'm used to it in formula one if i would run a softer brake button it feels like i'm pressing it through the floor but [Music] it's different it's a bit different where in the car you feel it through your body you know what the when the car is stepping out or whatever everything is relying on on the steering so yeah you have to get used to it it's it's a very i mean we i'm part of that of team redline as well and we have some very good sim drivers and you go through data it's insane like i even i learned from that how precise you have to be with the steering inputs like don't overslip the tires and some sim drivers are really good in finding that like perfect slip angle yeah and for me it's quite easy to over slip like just go a bit too far where in real life you feel that a bit more you know you oh that's too far or whatever but still it makes you think what do you say there i think he still learns of that and it's the same what we what we have with the gt cars we are driving in the winter time just for fun but still you take some points out of that where you what you make you think info for more it's different things what makes you go faster than a gt car where you know braking for example is very important and formula one because you have so much downforce you sometimes forget how important braking is the last bit of braking and then when you go in the gt car lower downfalls of course it's all about if you miss your break by my alpha meter a meter you lose half a second or whatever you know in f1 that's maybe 200. but when you keep practicing those kind of things it will improve in formula as well because you you are more precise in what you're doing yeah i think that anything that's stimulating the brain hand-eye coordination clearly has to be a good thing the big question uh that people would love to know of course is will we ever see a professional sim racer be at the same level and winning in an actual real world the pro the problem is that uh i think it's in the the fear factor as well where i mean you're not you're not scared while driving but a sim driver for example when you crash into a wall you press restart and it's good in real life when you're going 300 or whatever through or 250 through a corner you're like you know if i make a mistake now i can end up in the wall and i don't think they have that speed reference yet and that takes i think a long time and i don't have the feeling yeah because you don't have the g-forces are feeling on the scene so they have to they have to you know i think when you do both you know when you start your career and go card and the racing and then do the the the sim with it i think that will help but when you do when you started with a sim and then on a later age you think uh can be a racing driver i think you're too late i think initially also you would get sick anyway because of the chief you're not used to those kind of geforce so you're like yeah like it yeah you never did it in your life so yeah then it's hard so i think it's very hard but never say never maybe there's a very natural gifted guy you know for both so in the same way that we haven't seen the guy come from sim racing into single seaters and have success the professional racers within your team you said it's called redline what sort of distance would or time would you are you the you know you're right there on the pace are you a tenth away what sort of differences are we talking about it's actually funny so over last winter so actually even during the last few formula one races i had to qualify well i wanted to qualify for like it was a porsche super cup like the championship championship like where all the good the best sim racers were participating but only 40 guys make the cut and 20 of them were already qualified from the previous year so the top 20 was already confirmed so there were 20 spots available to to get into that championship and you had to do 12 weeks of racing and then that top 20 would go through and i made it i made the cut so i was happy about that um and then in the second race weekend of that championship before f1 eve started again because i couldn't do the full championship i managed to finish second out of the 40 drivers and my teammate won so and we were within a second so i wouldn't say i'm exactly the same pace but you don't need to be because i have the experience in the race where i'm very consistent but maybe over one lap and qualifying and behind but then you know little race moments or start you know you you can get them but um yeah i'm not not far behind but also i mean i've practiced a lot so that's i said that's pretty impressive i like the best sim racers in the world to be able to get into that that top 20. but i like it because it's pushing me as well you know if the guy is faster i mean i don't like when someone's faster than me so i'm i'm on it i'm trying to to stay close and it just keeps you sharp as well throughout the whole winter so this is interesting because i don't drive anything anymore i'm retired retired retired and i've got distant memories you still go out on track for the thrill the the enjoyment you share a car i think of modern enjoyment yeah so how frustrating is it then when you know how quick you were when let's say you were younger now can you grade how much you might have lost in getting older and when max goes faster than you which i assume he does you know how do you it's a really because i i know i can do a better job than i do now but it has also so what to do with the training it's simple just do it yeah but it's i mean since the last time i went i went back for training but i don't have a goal yeah the goal is to come closer to him but that's that's fine because it's your son but when i really have a goal and i think you're physically fit and do think i i think i can find another half a second but then probably i'm still about uh yeah more than half second away from him but they do it so much easier and now you know when we were young we jump in and we can go fast but now you really have to work for it you really have to look and and use all your experience to to come close it's not bad in fast corners it's just the low speed where you he was always brave yeah fast corners were comparable yeah and let's say but it's all on the braking and on the accident how you it's the way they're braking i cannot figure out and i'm i'm pushing the brake paddle way too hard and i cannot like he does it's he pressed the pedal less hard and brakes later i cannot understand that is frustrating that was a funny thing so the very first time i drove a gt3 car you have abs traction control so i was driving you know you i took a few laps you're braking and then i came in and of course we were comparing data for the engineer had and i was breaking like 40 bars less of what the reference was he said you have to hit the brakes hard i'm like no because when you hit the brake side you get into that abs and left it's it's controlling for you yeah and then the car is not doing what you want so i was always against the a b you use a delivered to not lock up but you shouldn't be flat out into it so i had that discussion for a few sessions with the guy which i like i like to have a discussion and i was trying to debate it and then of course you put new tires and then you just saw the deceleration if you don't hit the abs so hard it's better because you are in control of what the car is doing also when you turn in the car is turning in instead of the abs just being fully locking and yeah you can't turn in because the wheels are still yeah it's still controlling so that was my problem a bit on the braking on the brake yes i cannot i can't in a gt car i cannot feel when the tire or when the when the wheels are starting but you can't see them of course this is one thing but also you don't have that feeling and the brakes what you have in formal one where you feel and you know that you're on the limit yeah i cannot feel it in a gt car and that makes it hard for me to brake and they turn a lot quicker as well they and they go early on stop and that first and then i'm after a couple of laps physically it's getting tougher so you i'm more fighting yourself fighting myself then so then you go for new tires no no i haven't no no i read that over he always says when we share the car no no you take the new tires i'll do the next run the thing is because for me is the waste of time because i'm not on the limit of what you can do with the car so okay you're taking new tires i'm i'm fine with that i do the comparison with older tires but um yeah but i like it but now i'm i'm training a little bit more and i feel a little bit fitter and you know it's also funny that he normally can't really run my setup on the car no he thinks it's too oversteering now i have more oversteer with the same setup yeah yeah you say i need it i i don't know i need the front more stiff so i can really because of the front and i think that's to do with the way i'm braking i'm braking harder and probably later and then the rail is coming more so yeah so it'd be difficult for the pair of you to share a car and uh i'll just have to uh drive a bit more on the stair yeah now we will find a way we'll find a way in the middle that would be good that would be great to see right moving on um we're moving on to media and social media so the there's a sensation today or a belief today that your your average journalist at the track doesn't have a clue about formula one now there's it's always been a little bit like that's where there's always been some guys would be criticizing us yeah so where do you think the balance is today versus our time now when you read comments uh you know about max do you feel it's more balanced less balanced than when we were doing it that's less balanced it's more aggressive than the statements yes i think everybody can react even when it's not a journalist or whatever everything can put everything on on social media and i think it's not clear and not fair also are you on social media personally yes i read them any responses yeah some journalists i give a hard time yeah yeah it's not fair what they say sometimes or they pretend that they they know everything but if they say in my face you know but they don't yeah they would be too scared i think to say that in front of my face yeah yeah there was a when i first started it was before social media but they had they used to have this auto course book which at the end of the year they rated the drivers and beside my name it said david has an amazing ability to talk about the crash as if he wasn't behind the wheel at the time so i went to the journalists and said do you think i'm always making excuses and he went yeah you always seem to have a reason why you crashed other than it was your mistake and i went i didn't realize that i thought i was always quite honest i was always blaming something else so sometimes it can be a wake-up call but have you had to yourself challenge now i can understand why yours would challenge a journalist he's earned that right as a next formula one driver and he's also your father but if you do you take the time do you make the effort of some guys being disrespectful or to be honest i uh i don't follow any racing on twitter or instagram i i prefer how many you're anyway so much into that world and anyway i'm not interested what other people say so i'm like i just follow football apart from that you're listening yeah of course my dad yeah people who like really know me because if you don't know the person i think it's anyway very hard to judge of it's very hard to judge and how to respond to someone so i'm like i only listen to the people who actually really know me because that's you know you can talk i mean i don't do everything perfect you know nobody is perfect you can always learn you can always do better but uh yeah but it's also better to just not follow follow it because he does he follows everything yeah so sometimes he sends me stuff i just want to see how people talk about things yeah and sometimes they call him something like silly or whatever he said why call him silly you know so i call him mainly i call him yeah so then i don't have evidence what i should say but i call him and i you know i fight him yeah so the there's obviously a difference um in you know post career i've i've gone into working in television when i was a driver i was like there's no way i'm working in television as i got closer to the end of my career i realized there was a business opportunity have you done much media work in retirement you've done nothing i was i was busy with him can you imagine him being a commentator i think you'd be brilliant because you would just say what you think where i say i tend to sit down when i watch the races and i you know and you have those commentators i see a lot more than they see yeah because you race yourself yeah so but that's not my priority you know it's uh it's him i want to watch what's going on yeah and when i stopped racing i was on racing circuits with him all the time what i love to do what's the best the best time yeah it's fantastic it's great i i find it inspirational actually i've got a 12 year old or i'll be 12 tomorrow and i'm not spending as much time at the car track as you did together but i'm building a trailer and and getting more into to this for the future because he loves to do it and it's such a great father-son bonding experience so uh you know thank you thank you are you hard on him already i i took him at the one of the races before covert 19 i said i need to have a chat and took him in the car and i said son what are you doing you know that wasn't very good and he said what do you mean i said well your times and some of the things you did and then he started to cry and i feel so bad because i don't want him to cry but equally on the other hand i felt good that he he felt kind of embarrassed because if you don't care then you probably don't have the hunger i i i know you made him cry i remember he was he was probably eight or nine or something and after wednesday's after school because school was finished at 12. we went to the goku track and it was in the winter time was freezing so i let the van run so he could warm up and then we did 10 laps ah god said okay go warm up and then three minutes later where is he now i said come on i'm still say i don't care drive and then he couldn't he couldn't move his fingers and i i didn't care i wanted to test things because i was building engines and chassis change and things like that and i wanted to have a result because i was you know i wanted to move forward yeah but then he was feeling all the things i'm cold and things and then when the fingers warm up then again and that's very painful and i said ah shut up you know you are trying to make me tough i think and but one of the funniest ones was i think in that final year in pfi you remember yep and world championship first session yeah i was driving like a potato i swear it was really bad i said [ __ ] what is he doing so i called him in i was always on the tracks yeah so he he came back into this trouble so he would stand up i know really smashed him on his helmet here bang and he was like all the mechanics around her were like uh what happened there and then uh so you and i say what are you doing say we're here let's watch empty and i think we can win it we don't drive normal we go home i pack up everything [Laughter] qualifying first he won all the heats pre-final and final nice wake-up call i think you found that tough love so you had to tell us yeah and i can see and i if he was making a bad thing or driving bad i could see it immediately and then drifting and woke him up and yeah he needed that sometimes yeah well i think he still needs it now sometimes he knows exactly my father would say if that's the best you can do we may as well put the cart in the back of the van and go home oh i've done that as well yeah well i think i had that experience i think back then i needed that wake-up call sometimes because my dad sometimes thought i was all like too relaxed you know too easy going yeah but that was my way of not having pressure and just try to get the i'm still like that i think you on a tuesday or wednesday before like the race weekend starts you are more excited than me i know he texts me i know more what's coming than he does yeah oh he's like so are you looking forward to it i'm like yeah you know yeah but i'm like on a tuesday or wednesday i'm like but where are you like that when you were racing or is it now because of your mouth because yeah with him yeah it's fantastic i think it's really it's really really great the the way you've you've developed this and the way you're continuing the journey one more on the the media side of things if you could change something about media around the weekend today what would you do i think they should stop this silly things what all these former one drivers do you know you see all this uh for social media hold it you stupid stupid you know i think it's not i think a former one driver is tough and and it should be the modern day gladiator yes yeah but i don't like that i prefer how it works i already made the pictures before like you know what they you see in um before every practice session yeah coming up yeah you're like posing or whatever i'm like let's get rid of all that just you know i think it's not formula one yeah worthy yeah you can understand why liberty the commercial rights holder why the teams like all that because they're trying to connect with this young demographic who are all think this is cool but in actual fact you would never walk up to a camera and go like that it's just it's not real so it's kind of jump in the car yeah yeah just jump in the car and do what you have to like that they should make this racing more more exciting yeah and then that's that's what everybody wants to see and get rid of all this silly stuff sure and and then probably the final question here the most important one here and and the the riskiest from my point of view is to ask you who's your favorite interviewer from all the tv stations that uh would chat to you one who actually has a clue about what he's actually talking about it could be it could be an example uh no but that's why always talking to ex-racing drivers is the best yeah because they understand so you wouldn't possibly i don't want to people would you get into the channel for david yeah potentially we always have a good interview could you actually see channel four david coleman channel four david cool there we go there you go right now that's my recognition because when you talk to someone you feel when somebody you know understands exactly what you're talking about it's so much better than ever having to talk to someone in like a very basic language yeah yeah well we agree on that right moving on to the next sort of uh headline statement here that the young drivers get promoted to formula one too fast right now now this is particularly interesting in terms of your career because you arrived in formula one capable and and achieving winning a grand prix before you actually had a full-time driving license if i understand so i've always had this belief if you're good enough you're old enough and if you're good enough you're not too old what would you say now having come through that experience they put an age limit i think of 18 yeah well i think it depends a lot on how you're prepared in your younger years i think you see in all sports people are getting younger so i think it's just all getting more professional from from the start and that helps so that's why you can't compare like 15 20 years ago to now because i think everybody already from a very young age they are first of all physically well very well prepared they have the right coaches around them and and driving right as well there's a lot more info to it now you know onwards data and yeah they become automatically already well prepared we're better prepared into a season you know so you were young as well when you got your opportunity i think i was 23 when i came i also did i think two years i did 22 now you haven't done that you haven't done many car races by the time i think i did 49 before i came to uh formula one i did one year volkswagen lotus one year formula three and then i made the jump to to formula one and so in terms of experience you you didn't have the same experiences as max in terms of having started too early do you feel that that i think for me it was too early afterwards but at the time i felt it was right but i think yeah one more year and better prepared for it but it was different than him i think he was prepared very well still had not so many car races because i think we did how many we have 23 and f3 23 races because he had three races in the weekends yeah we did some days testing and we did the winter time the thing is what i liked at the end of the day was i prefer to make the mistakes in f1 and then i have to deal in f2 or f3 once you're in there yeah i think for him was the absolutely the right choice to to stop him from one so you we know you can't really compare michael schumacher to lewis hamilton uh as a greatest driver because there were different ears there was a crossover but the different phases but people are always wanting to sort of look at how the certain generations compare how would you respond to the general public in that oh well i think that's a difficult one but i mean michael in his time and i raced against him i wasn't the same team he was teammate yeah he was special and he was motivated and he was fit and he was i think he was very fast and and the same with louis but i think not you know that you not really can who's the better one you know or would you say who had more luck to drive the fastest car at that time boat had you know yeah i think michael created it more towards his liking you know he took the people from bennetton to ferrari so what basically a little bit the same team and i think with lewis i mean he he made the right call to to go to mercedes at the right time nobody thought for him that he was winning six titles with them and i think he i mean he's absolutely top driver but he also had the top material so if we if we look away from that this era and look back to the time before you were in formula one did you have a driver that stood out for you that either inspired you or you particularly followed or it wasn't like that for you i think it was more like uh nikki louder yeah and alan prost yeah yeah yeah frost was someone that i always thought he was very efficient yeah and the way he drove he did have a bit of a weight advantage at that time yeah he did which still has he still has yeah um so you're out there actually racing with lewis uh michael you know his records from the past you know how your father can explain how he drove when you look at lewis now i know you fear nobody you you attack the track and you do the best with what you have when you have the opportunity you've shown that you can beat the mercedes and you can beat lewis are you able as a competitor to recognize publicly his strengths and his weaknesses or you prefer just to look at him as another competitor the weaknesses are a little bit more difficult because you're not in the same team because i'm pretty sure if you would be in the same team then you will see the weaknesses but of course i mean that to be i mean of course he has the best car he still has a teammate to beat which he is doing but he's also you know very consistent in what he is doing for a long time now i think you know he doesn't make many mistakes himself you know he doesn't crash he always takes the points home so that is something which is very important and he does that very well so he's he's definitely one of the i think the best ever in formula one just not only just pure championship wise or whatever but in terms of consistency you know you've seen some other drivers make some silly mistakes or whatever he's not really doing that so that makes him tough to beat because you cannot have a crash or you know you have to be always honored but at the other hand you're always starting on the first row so the chance of a crash is not that big instead of being on the second or the third or even further behind to try and catch up so that's also another thing i mean because once you're on the lead or second i mean that when you're so comfortably out front with a with a strong car it's very hard to make a mistake so one thing that i've been impressed with is is how rather than getting frustrated that the mercedes has continually been let's say the benchmark in formula one you you take out of every weekend the best performers you can and you seem not beaten positive so it doesn't seem to me that you're going well if i had that car i would win now can you maybe explain to people at home how do you rationalize your natural desire to want to taste the champagne as first place every time versus formula one is a sport where the car plays a huge part and whether you can win or not yeah i mean initially i was like that i mean you get you would get a bit frustrated about it because you you have that belief and okay it's gonna happen it's gonna happen and then every year just not just not um so this year for example i said to myself you know what i can be frustrated all the time about not winning but maybe i should just see it in a way okay it's not possible but i'm just gonna try to do the best i can and get the best out of myself and you know really find that enjoyable and that's what i'm just trying to do now i can be happy with second or third and qualifying when you know that you had a really good lap or get a fastest lap in the race when you know you're a bit down on in terms of lap time of course to them um yeah i think that at the moment is making me happy of course i want to win but to get frustrated all the time i don't think you can last a full season like that so yeah you've got to save your energy is that something that you can share because again as a father you want the best for yourself this beginning of the season i was really you know i wouldn't say angry but disappointed yeah because you know you hear always the stories and then it doesn't happen and i was really a bit angry that it again didn't happen so you know and the but the good thing is we always discuss things together with max and raymond you know and raymond discuss it with with helmut and then we sit together and things like that so but it means that we can be very open to yeah everyone in the team you know and that's the good thing we can really talk about it and um but also we make the decision for long-term agreement with with them and to give them the chance to you know that we win the world championship so um so we have a go next year again but i would love to to challenge them and to uh to fight for the championship but it must give you some comfort knowing that there's no doubt max has all of the qualities to win that championship i know it doesn't mean he's physically got his hand on the trophy i almost stole it in paris last time yeah i found it in the room i saw i was there yeah and uh we were changing and suddenly the trophy was just standing there after the prize giving i'm sorry just take it yeah and that's why formula one has to change it should be all come closer more more overtaking more racing you know and have different people on the front row and you know and they have the others on on the second or third row and then there will be more mistakes as well from the the best the best ever drivers and that's how it should be yeah a little bit like you know yeah they have eight or nine races with eight different winners yeah that's what we love to see in formula one as well well i think we can all agree on that um one thing i think that we should we should recognize that having this opportunity to bring you both together is because of one of your partners carnex dot com uh and therefore it would be uh inappropriate if i didn't ask you about cars and and what you would buy for for the road so putting to one side your personal relationships with honda and nasa i i give you a certain amount of money right now what are you what are you going to go and buy so uh the depends to be honest i really enjoy driving like an suv if it's sporty you know the the like the euros yeah it's good fast it's good looking it has space it's honestly my favorite car at the moment of course you know sports cars great like porsche cars and stuff like that gt3 gt2 rs whatever you know these are very nice cars it just depends also what you need right but of course on pure performance you would always go for something like that i mean brakes are good like it comes close to like a proper you know race car so yeah uh and you probably don't shop online for any sort of hot hatches or city cars but if you did have you got something to be honest my dad like when we were in gokan in the amount of times we were spending on like what was all those websites looking at cars so yeah yeah i like uh i like us a lot of course you get to drive you do enjoy driving so i love to drive and wrote i don't i didn't mind even in a van you know i drove thousands of kilometers 100 000 a year every year for 10 years so i love it i love it i love out on the road yeah so you're the perfect customer for carnx.com you're the sort of person that will just be surfing to see where the next opportunity is it needs to have a like to put the camera behind yeah yeah yeah absolutely well they they cater a lot now they're represented in more than 20 countries which is kind of where formula 1 is so it's a perfect partner for you so just a little word on on working with them it's yeah i mean of course we we started the partnership this year of course what happened in the world didn't make it very easy but everybody is very understanding and and so far it's a very enjoyable partnership and i hope of course that we we can continue it for a very long time because there are you know great people yeah well it's great to see the logo in the front of your helmet right technically they they get to cross the line before you do because it's in front of you it's just a limited edition his feet are on front side he's got it covered everywhere well gentlemen thank you very much for your time you've been more than generous inviting us into your home here in monte carlo we wish you all the best for the remainder of the season and to all those on conex.com watching i hope you enjoy the podcast

Channel: CarNext.com

Views: 1,263,305

Keywords: max verstappen, verstappen, jos verstappen, max verstappen met jos verstappen

Id: NzdaAUU7Da8

Length: 58min 32sec (3512 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 27 2020