The day Joe Saward spotted Max' talent

Published on 10 May 2014 by Stefan Meens

Joe Saward is a well known figure in the world of motorsport. The prominent British Formula 1 journalist cut his teeth, travelling around Europe, living in a tent, while reporting on the European Formula 3 and European Touring Car Championships in the early eighties. After that he went on to write for several prominent motor racing magazines, news letters, the official Formula 1 website as well as publishing several best selling books.

A glance at his career proves Saward is not your ordinary journalist. He investigates beyond mainstream motor sport reporting as he became and still is an authority on Formula 1's political, financial, innovative and environmental side. Saward has build an incredible network throughout his career and he can open doors that remain locked for others.
On top of that, the Englishman has attended every Grand Prix since 1988, he therefore carries his trusty permanent FIA pass with him at all times.

So why mention Joe on the Verstappen Info Page? The reason is a blog post from November 2009 in which Saward mentioned a certain talented youngster. He might have only been twelve years old and without any karting experience on an international level, but Max Verstappen was al ready on Joe Saward's radar. The Englishman sensed the raw talent of Max. In hindsight, Saward's observations proved right on the money...

I blame the Dutch…
(11/11/2009, Joe Saward)

From time to time every writer reads a line that they wish they had written. It is a bit like the celebrated conversation between Oscar Wilde and James Whistler.

“How I wish I had said that,” said Wilde.
“Oh you will, Oscar, you will,” replied Whistler.

One such line is from the Austin Powers movie “Goldmember”. I am not a fan of Austin Powers but this is pure genius.

“There’s only two things I hate in this world,” said Austin’s father Nigel. “People who are intolerant of other people’s cultures and the Dutch.”

It makes me laugh out loud every time. And it does not matter how many times I read it, it is still funny. Now before you start complaining about racism, it could say English, Polish, Zimbabwean or Catalan. The nationality is not important.

The truth is that I am using the headline to conduct an experiment to see the impact of a controversial headline in comparison to a dull one. The Dutch are huge F1 fans and very Internet-savvy so many of them should read this. I am not about to start using controversial headlines to boost the numbers on the blog , but I am simply looking at the effect it has.

Hey, it’s the winter and I have five minutes for such things…

There is a story in here (eventually). It is about Jos Verstappen and how it seems that the Dutch have hit on the idea of how to find a great racing driver. Forget the hours of training, the answer is to breed them. Now we have seen many sons of famous fathers but Jos is ahead of the game in his thinking as he managed to find a competitive lady racer with whom to share his DNA and the result – Max Verstappen – should one day be a top notch racer as a result.

Jos was a terrific F1 driver. He was given too much too soon and went up against Michael Schumacher at Benetton at time when it was not wise to do so. None of the drivers in that car ever did well. This is possibly because no-one in the second Benetton ever found the celebrated Option 13 software that the FIA found in Michael’s car at Imola in 1994.

The result of this was that Jos was written off before he ever really had the chance to make his reputation and although he raced in 107 Grands Prix, he was never again in a car that was capable of winning. Along the way, however, he married a lady called Sophie Kumpen, the daughter of the Belgian national rallycross champion Paul Kumpen. She was a terrific kart racer – with the CRG team – and indeed in 1995 won the Margutti Trophy at Parma, beating the likes of Jarno Trulli and Giorgio Pantano. She was also the Belgian champion and placed second in the Japanese kart GP at Sugo.

Max was born in 1997 and has won several cadet and junior karting titles in the Benelux region. He has now been signed to race in KF3 in 2010 with CRG. I met him the other day at the Nurburgring and he seems like a nice kid. I expect he will be turning up in F1 before too long…

You can find the article on Joe Saward's blog. Well worth a read: http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/i-blame-the-dutch/