{"id":13249,"date":"2026-04-28T10:04:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T10:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/13249\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T10:04:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T10:04:23","slug":"jos-verstappen-escapes-violent-rally-car-crash-unhurt-in-belgium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/13249\/","title":{"rendered":"Jos Verstappen escapes \u2018violent\u2019 rally car crash unhurt in Belgium"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jos Verstappen<\/a> escaped unharmed after a \u201cviolent\u201d rally car crash at the Rallye de Wallonie in Belgium<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The 54-year-old, father of four-time F1<\/a> world champion Max Verstappen<\/a>, lost control of his car during the Loyers special stage of the race and crashed into a tree.<\/p>\n

Photos from the wreckage<\/a> show the car flipped upside-down but Verstappen and co-driver Jasper Vermeulen escaped unhurt.<\/p>\n

Verstappen Snr. is the reigning national rally champion and had been running third before his car \u201cviolently\u201d went off the road, according to the competition\u2019s social media platforms.<\/p>\n

The Dutchman was competing without his usual co-driver Renaud Jamoul, who has recently had surgery on an ankle injury.<\/p>\n

Verstappen Snr. has been a regular in Formula 1 paddocks over the last 11 years, supporting his son Max in the Red Bull garage. He is also a former F1 driver himself with 106 grands prix and two podiums to his name.<\/p>\n

He has also recently given his verdict <\/a>on the new F1 rules this year, which have been extensively criticised by son Max, who says he is considering quitting the sport at the end of the season.<\/p>\n

Speaking about the new regulations and his son\u2019s plans, Verstappen Snr told Racexpress<\/a>: \u201cIt\u2019s madness to say that GT3 is a better race than Formula 1. It used to be the other way round.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll those GT3 lads were desperate to get a taste of what it\u2019s like in Formula 1, but these days that\u2019s hard to come by.<\/p>\n

\"Jos<\/p>\n

Jos Verstappen, 54, escaped unharmed after a crash on Sunday (Reuters)<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a driver, I find it [2026 rules] less enjoyable too. Every now and then,I\u2019m watching and I switch the TV off because I\u2019m less interested. It\u2019s not the Formula 1 that Formula 1 stands for.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe driver has to rely heavily on the car and can no longer make a difference as a driver. I think that\u2019s a shame in Formula 1. Look, you have to brake late, but you can\u2019t brake too late either. Yet in fast corners, you really need to be able to make a difference, like in the first sector in Japan.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just can\u2019t do that with this car and certainly not with that battery that you have to keep recharging.\u201d<\/p>\n

F1 next races at the Miami Grand Prix (1-3 May) this weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jos Verstappen escaped unharmed after a \u201cviolent\u201d rally car crash at the Rallye de Wallonie in Belgium on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,9102,8965,9099,9101,9100],"class_list":{"0":"post-13249","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-belgium","8":"tag-belgium","9":"tag-car","10":"tag-jos-verstappen","11":"tag-max-verstappen","12":"tag-rallye-de-wallonie","13":"tag-verstappen-snr"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116481770437998790","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}