The Undercut | Max Verstappen

chapter 3

Max's POV.
Spa, Belgium.

It was way too early. I was used to early mornings on race weekends, but that didn't mean I was any more of a morning person. Actually, the more the FIA insisted on adding races to a season, the more I felt like crying for all the precious sleep I'd be losing out on. I wasn't lazy, I'd never had trouble getting down to business when I had to do things, but God, I loved the feeling of a good night's sleep. Back when I was a teenager, I struggled a lot with sleep. I used to roll over in bed a million times without being able to fall asleep. That would make me angry and frustrated, which made it even harder for me to focus on sleeping, which then meant that the following day I walked around with a permanent frown on my face and a hot temper.

I think maybe that's why a lot of the kids thought I was mean. In reality, I was just fucking tired. It made me volatile, and my dad's constant pushing to get me as close to perfection wasn't helping at the time. I was just this tall (Yes, back then I was one of the tallest kids, I know, I don't know what happened after I hit puberty either), chubby kid who apparently looked perpetually pissed off at everyone. I just wanted a nap, some doritos, and to be allowed to play football with my friends during the week. Back then, I was falling asleep at 4am, then getting up at 6:30 to go race in the local karting track, I had school at 8:00 but I always arrived late. Then I had to stay awake until lunch. After school it was back to the track. And then it was time for homework, dinner, rolling over in bed for a few hours, and repeat. No wonder I looked like I hated everybody. I fucking did. I'm not even sure I liked myself very much back then, but as a kid you don't really question those things, do you? You just get on with life and do what you have to do. Or at least, that's what I kept telling myself I had to do. It's not like there was much of an option for me anyway.

I loved racing. I know some kids who got into the sport because their parents wanted them to. And I also know that because of who my father is and how he raised me, most people think that's the case with me too. But it really wasn't. I had to beg my dad to let me try karting. I was only 3 years old and I was running directly into the garages to touch, smell, feel, hear and look at everything whenever we went to see my older cousins race. It was only a hobby for them, but it was so much more for me. I was transfixed. I wanted to be inside the go kart and press the pedals and know what it felt like. My dad said yes, thinking I would only do it once or twice. But he had no idea. The second I experienced it for the first time, I wanted more of it. I can complain all I want about the way I was raised, and yes, if I was a father there's a million things I would do differently from my dad. But I can't say I didn't love every second I got to spend behind a wheel. So when I began competing my dad sat me down and he said: "Son, is this a hobby?" and I said "No, dad. It's everything" and so he replied "Then we make it everything. I know what it's like to fail at something you dedicate your whole life to, it's soul crushing. And I don't want that for you, I don't want you to feel that way. So, if to you this is everything, we will make it everything, together."

And so it began. I know he genuinely did everything because he never wanted me to feel the pain of knowing you've wasted your life on something that didn't work out. It happened to him. He sacrificed his life for Formula 1, and it didn't work. He lost his family and his career, and it made him frustrated and angry, and violent at times. He didn't want that for me. I just don't think he realized that by raising me the way he did, he was setting me up to become just as angry as he was. I'm telling you, us Verstappen men? We could write a book about dysfunctional families. I don't justify him or the things he's done in the past, but he did the best he could with whatever tools he had.

I say all of this to say: My dad was angry at me, a 25 year old man, for showing up 10 minutes late to a team briefing. He already wasn't fond of the fact that I refused to do track walks (pointless things they are, why would I waste five precious minutes of sleep to walk around a track I've obsessively raced around in a simulator for 9 hours a day?), but showing up late with no plausible excuse? That was another layer of unprofessionalism he wasn't tolerating.