Rik Vernooij: "Max in F1 is the crowning glory of this season’s hard work."
Published on 01 October 2014 by Stefan Meens
Max Verstappen’s Van Amersfoort Racing race-engineer Rik Vernooij has played an important role in Red Bull Junior’s successful Formula 3 debut season. Chatting to ALLsportradio, Vernooij reflects on the pre-season build up and rates the current season.
Van Amersfoort’s interest in signing Max dated back all the way to the Autumn of 2013. It would, however, take until March before the collaboration between the Dutch outfit and the talented youngster was announced. “The season starts in April and we didn’t decide until February so, there was quite a bit of pressure. Mainly because everything had to be organised well in short amount of time. But we were happy we were able to pull it off because we knew there was a lot of potential.”
Vernooij stresses the need for a good driver. “It doesn’t matter how fast I make the car, if there’s no one who can drive it to it’s potential often people say the car isn’t quick enough. That’s why I'm always on the look out for talented drivers to sign for our team. So when Max was doing so well in karts, he caught our eye.”
Near the end of 2013, the team intensified their interest in Max. “We really wanted to give Max a test and him and Jos were keen. However, their original plan was to do a year in Formula Renault 2.0. So when they were offered FR2.0 test, that was a higher priority. This meant we were sidelined for quite a while but in the end they really trusted in us as a team and we decided to contest the European Formula 3 championship together.”
With Max signing for Scuderia Toro Rosso and joining the Red Bull Junior Team, 2015 will look different for Van Amersfoort Racing. “We won’t have Max around next year but we sort of knew that if he did well this year, he would only be with us for one season. So now we are looking for a new Max. Nevertheless, it’s fantastic how we worked together and managed to have such a special season. To me, the fact that Max will compete in F1 next year is the crowning glory of all the hard work this season.”
