The degree to which Jos Verstappen’s own Formula 1 disappointment fuelled everything he poured into son Max’s preparation for his ultimately-phenomenal F1 career is already part of motorsport folklore.
The element that perhaps gets overlooked now is how good Jos’s own F1 career was supposed to be - that there was a period, a short one admittedly, when there was just as much excitement over Jos’s prospects as a future F1 champion as there was over Max’s arrival on the F1 grid in 2015.
As the latest episode of our new F1 Rewind podcast series with Edd Straw and Mark Hughes explores, it’s a test for Footwork at Estoril in late September 1993 that really starts the hype.
Only two years out of karting, and having just won the German Formula 3 title, 21-year-old Jos sets a time that would’ve put his very middling car 10th on the grid for the previous weekend’s Portuguese Grand Prix. Track evolution played a part in his time, but the impression his overall performance makes is huge. Verstappen gets the cover slot on the next week’s Autosport magazine, which declares him ‘F1’s hottest new boy’.
Edd Straw: “If you look at Jos Verstappen's career record and didn't experience it or live through it, it's really easy to underestimate how big an impact this test really made."
Mark Hughes: “He was a seriously hot property at that time. He came straight in from karting and won championship immediately in GM Lotus in the Benelux Championship. He'd done a one-off guest appearance in the bigger league GM Lotus series at Spa. He was sensational in that.
“He moved straight to Formula 3, won the German championship, dominated it, and looked set to set the F1 tracks alight.
“The teams were falling over themselves trying to get him on a long-term contract. If you were looking for where the next Michael Schumacher or Mika Hakkinen might be, that's where you are looking. No question.”
Edd Straw: “Everybody was talking to him basically. McLaren gave him a test at one stage. Obviously Benetton, who he eventually signed for. There was a little bit of Ferrari interest even. It was an absolute clamour because this was the next mega-star.
“Also because of how rapid his ascent was. Karting to F1 in two years. In recent years we’ve got a bit more used to really fast ascents, such as Max Verstappen’s. But that was really, really rare at this point.
“So you've not only got this driver who is considered to be incredible, but he's on this rocketship to F1 as well.
“And if in late 1993 you were saying, ‘right, who is going to come into F1 and win races and be a future world champion?’ Jos Verstappen is the name people would have picked out.”
Mark Hughes: “Overwhelmingly at that time. There was no question. He was on the verge of something big.”
Where it all goes wrong
Verstappen and manager Huub Rothengatter pick Benetton, which is offering a season of testing and preparation in 1994 then a guaranteed race seat - either in its own squad, or placed elsewhere - for 1995.
But rather than getting a year of learning outside the spotlight, Verstappen is thrust into Benetton’s second race seat alongside Michael Schumacher when JJ Lehto is injured in a testing crash.
Verstappen ultimately gets two stints in that seat, with Lehto still struggling on his return and having to step away again, before being benched at the end of the season so Benetton can evaluate Johnny Herbert in that car.
It adds up to 10 of the 16 1994 rounds in the second Benetton, with Verstappen earning two podiums, but also being sent into a terrifying aerial crash on his debut in Brazil in a pile-up triggered by Eddie Irvine and being caught up in the infamous German GP pit fire.
Later admitting he found the Schumacher-centric car “too nervous” for him, Verstappen never outqualified or even once led Schumacher at the end of a racing lap in their eight outings together with a massive 1.920s (2.288%) average deficit.
Going up against Schumacher in the same team as an underprepared rookie, amid a season of turmoil, was a tall order. And it was enough to instantly crush all that career momentum and hype Verstappen had carried into F1.
Mark Hughes: “In hindsight, he wasn't ready, he came in too early. Had the original plan played out, he would have been getting a lot of mileage away from the spotlight of grands prix and would have probably come in much better prepared in 1995.
“Not only that, Benetton was absolutely centred around Michael Schumacher and team boss Flavio Briatore was into driver management and then making money on drivers.
“Rothengatter and Verstappen had unknowingly surrendered control of his own destiny. As well as being in essentially just the second string car in a team that was totally focused around one driver, Verstappen wasn't even going to be in charge of where he was going to go next.”
Edd Straw: “He has this weird season and actually a big chunk of that career momentum's wiped out by that first season. It really, really is. It's not gone. There's still a residual, ‘oh this guy's good’, but already pretty much the die is cast.”
Mark Hughes: “It saps you of energy when you get into a situation like that where you're the second driver and you're not the focus of anything. And you've been used to being at the absolute centre of everything. You've been used to being treated as a megastar in the making and with everything centred around you in the junior category, with everybody there for you, everybody on your side. And suddenly to be in the lackey role, I think it does damage you.
“And not only that, but you're going up against Michael Schumacher as a rookie.
“And in his more reflective later years, Verstappen also said that even disregarding the equipment differences - and there were significant equipment differences at Benetton - and even disregarding all the factors against him, when you looked at some of the things that Michael was able to do close up and suddenly have to say to yourself, ‘I came in thinking I was going to win races, I think I'm going to win the championship, I'm going to beat everybody’ and then you come up against somebody like that and you think, ‘no, maybe I have to recalibrate here’.
“And even Verstappen acknowledges that maybe he wasn't Michael Schumacher.
“But he was pretty good. Better than he was able to show subsequently.”
Watch or listen to F1 Rewind for much more on Jos’s F1 career, including the later big opportunities that fell through, and an in-depth look at how it all fed into the way he handled Max’s upbringing and journey towards F1.