Jos Verstappen

Jos Verstappen

Verstappen at an A1 Grand Prix test in 2005
Born	(1972-03-04) 4 March 1972 (age 45) Montfort, Netherlands
Formula One World Championship career
Nationality	Dutch
Active years	1994–1998, 2000–2001, 2003
Teams	Benetton, Simtek, Footwork, Tyrrell, Stewart, Arrows and Minardi
Entries	107 (106 starts)
Championships	0
Wins	0
Podiums	2
Career points	17
Pole positions	0 (Best qualifying position, 6th, 1994 Belgian Grand Prix)
Fastest laps	0
First entry	1994 Brazilian Grand Prix
Last entry	2003 Japanese Grand Prix

Johannes Franciscus "Jos" Verstappen (born 4 March 1972) is a Dutch racing driver. Jos Verstappen has won races in A1 Grand Prix and Le Mans Series LMP2 races. Prior to his F1 début in 1994, he was also the German Formula Three champion and Masters of Formula Three winner in 1993.

Verstappen began karting at the age of 8, and was participating in national competitions not long after. In 1984 he became Dutch junior champion. He remained successful, and won two European titles.

At the end of 1991 he made the transition to car racing. He drove in Formula Opel Lotus, a class in which identical cars compete against each other. He won the European championship in his first year, and got an offer to drive in Formula Three with Van Amersfoort Racing, who also developed other drivers such as Christijan Albers, Tom Coronel and Bas Leinders. During that European winter season, he raced in New Zealand Formula Atlantic. Subsequently, in German Formula Three, he won several international competitions, including the 1993 Marlboro Masters and the German Formula 3 championship.

Verstappen first drove a Formula One car when he tested for the Footwork Arrows team alongside Gil de Ferran and Christian Fittipaldi at the Estoril circuit in Portugal. The test took place on September 28, 1993, two days after the Portuguese Grand Prix was held at the same circuit. Despite the large increase in power (from a 175 bhp Formula Three car to the 750 bhp of Formula One), Verstappen set a time that would have qualified him in the preceding race on his fourth timed lap, and improved his time by more than a second after 65 laps. His best lap time of the day was 1:14.45, which was only 0.07 seconds slower than regular driver Derek Warwick had lapped during qualifying, and would have placed him tenth on the grid, a highly impressive performance for a first test. He tested again on September 30 and was lapping near his existing record after five laps, but then crashed the car, ending the test early.