A family affair
Although a relatively small country with a population of under twenty million, the Netherlands punches above its weight when it comes to sporting endeavour. At the recent Paris Olympics, it finished sixth in the medal table with a total of 34, including no fewer than 15 golds. In football, the “Oranje” as the national team is known won the European Championship in 1988 and made it to the World Cup Final on three occasions, in 1974, 1978 and 2010. At club level a Dutch team has won the Champions League, or Champions Cup as it was known, six times – four for Ajax Amsterdam, one each for Feyenoord Rotterdam and PSV Eindhoven.
In Formula 1, to date, three world titles have been won by a Dutch driver, along with 61 wins, 40 pole positions, 32 fastest race laps, 109 podium finishes and it is eighth in the table for the most points per nation, on 2,892.5 and 12th when it comes to the number of Grand Prix starts with 461. It's a remarkable haul, except that it is pretty much the work of just one family, the Verstappens, most of it down to the younger one, Max. He alone has all the world titles, race wins, pole positions and 107 of the 109 podium finishes. The other two? They're down to his father Jos who finished third twice in 1994, in the Hungarian and Belgian Grands Prix when racing for Benetton-Ford alongside Michael Schumacher. Father and son also take the lion's share of points, 2,863.5 courtesy of Max and 107 from Jos. Only four other Dutch drivers have scored championship points: four each for Carel Goudin de Beaufort and Christjian Albers, two each for Gijs van Lennep and Nyck de Vries.
When it comes to Grand Prix starts, yet again nearly all of them are signed Verstappen. This weekend will be Max's 200th start, while Jos is the only other Dutchman to have raced in over 100 Grands Prix with 107 starts. A long way back in third spot is Albers on 46.
Given that only last Thursday Max announced he had already passed the halfway point of the number of Grands Prix in which he plans to race, who can the Dutch fans look to as a replacement once he decides to have fun elsewhere? Maybe the best hope for another home grown hero is for the three time world champion to father a child, as talent and speed seem to be part of the family DNA. More realistically, one only has to look here in Zandvoort at the enthusiasm generated by Max's amazing results and the way the whole nation seems to follow him as their idol at almost all the European Grands Prix, to hope that some young Dutch kids are already thinking of emulating him and trying their hand at motor racing. Just as 12 year old Dean Hoogendoorn is doing, who as from today has joined the Williams Racing Driver Academy. Will he be sending the crowd wild in Zandvoort in a decade's time?
