{"id":36586,"date":"2026-08-08T17:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T17:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/36586\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T17:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T17:16:07","slug":"vermeulen-sees-huge-verstappens-impact-in-the-netherlands-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/36586\/","title":{"rendered":"Vermeulen sees huge Verstappen’s impact in the Netherlands"},"content":{"rendered":"

Max Verstappen<\/a>\u2019s manager Raymond Vermeulen has praised the enormous impact the four-time world champion has made on Formula 1 in the Netherlands. He believes Verstappen played a major role in transforming the sport\u2019s popularity in his home country after years of limited interest.<\/p>\n

In conversation with Formula 1 Magazine, Vermeulen admitted that Verstappen has achieved something special. He witnessed how Formula 1 began to regain popularity in the Netherlands, after the sport, in his view, had been in a deep winter sleep.<\/p>\n

“The Dutch are of course chauvinistic and proud, so they join in and celebrate the success story. But that is also super cool to see. You see it too with the euphoria around the national football team or with speed skating at the Olympic Games.”<\/p>\n

‘What Max did was gigantic’Verstappen is of course the most successful Dutch F1<\/a> driver, followed by his father Jos. Vermeulen had already seen with Jos that something was stirred in the country, but Max\u2019s success was of a different magnitude.\"helmut-marko-jos-verstappen-raymond-vermeulen\"\/<\/p>\n

Vermeulen already experienced Jos\u2019s success, but saw how things struggled afterward. Photo: Red Bull Content Pool<\/p>\n

“Formula 1 in the Netherlands was in a long, deep winter sleep. After Jos\u2019s success, things were a bit difficult in terms of Dutch success. And Max\u2019s story, a young kid who turned the established order on its head, that was of course gigantic.”<\/p>\n

Dutch GP in Zandvoort thanks to Verstappen<\/p>\n

In 2021, Formula 1 returned to the Netherlands. After an absence of 36 years, Zandvoort was once again the stage for the pinnacle of motorsport. Vermeulen pointed to Max\u2019s contribution: “I think we as Dutch people can be incredibly proud that the Grand Prix returned to Zandvoort. For a long time no one would have dared to dream that. Max has been able to win there a number of times and has given the entire micro-economy around the Dutch GP a huge boost. I think everyone realizes that it\u2019s Max who moved the needle.”<\/p>\n

Verstappen’s performance blows analyst away: ‘Max Factor is well and truly a thing’Former IndyCar driver James Hinchcliffe has once again highlighted Verstappen\u2019s ability <\/a>to make the most of a difficult car. He believes the characteristics of the RB22 have made the Dutchman\u2019s season particularly difficult to evaluate, with Verstappen regularly expressing his dissatisfaction over the radio as he searches for the balance he wants from the car.<\/p>\n

Hinchcliffe also acknowledged the job Isack Hadjar has done alongside Verstappen, with the Frenchman proving more competitive than many of his team-mate\u2019s recent counterparts. Even so, Verstappen continues to hold a clear advantage, with Hadjar scoring 62% of his points. Hinchcliffe noted that both drivers have struggled with the RB22, but the difference between them tends to become more pronounced as the car moves towards a balance that better suits Verstappen.<\/p>\n

That advantage, in Hinchcliffe\u2019s view, underlines how much Verstappen can still extract from the machinery at his disposal. He identified Hungary as the strongest example, with the four-time world champion once again managing to produce more from the car than its performance might have suggested.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen\u2019s manager Raymond Vermeulen has praised the enormous impact the four-time world champion has made on Formula…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17288,17285,19916,17287,20214,6],"class_list":["post-36586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-netherlands","tag-f1","tag-f1-news","tag-jos-verstappen","tag-max-verstappen","tag-max-verstappen-news","tag-netherlands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}