Max Verstappen’s manager, Raymond Vermeulen, has revealed that he tries to ‘protect’ the Red Bull driver from PR and marketing distractions during a race weekend.
As Formula 1 headed to Zandvoort, everybody wanted to have a piece of Verstappen. The local hero was cheered on to victory by an adoring crowd as he claimed a remarkable ninth successive victory in front of his ‘Orange Army’.
And although things seem remarkably easy for the two-time world champion inside the seat of his RB19 right now, there are plenty of other distractions that could possibly derail his bid for a third title in as many years.
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And this is where Vermeulen steps in, after Verstappen’s manager admitted that he and the team do their best to keep the 25-year-old as focused as possible on his racing, regardless of the noise around him.
Protecting Verstappen
“We had a very sharp-planned schedule with Max,” he told the F1 Nation podcast after the Dutch Grand Prix.
“He came on Thursday morning and basically we did the shoots with Heineken…we tried to do everything on the Thursday so after 5/6/7 o’clock on Thursday he is done with PR and marketing things.
“It means we can keep him completely free and only focusing on the performance with his engineers and he can prepare for the race, qualifying and practice.
“I think we are one of the strongest ones [teams] to protect Max from PR and marketing things. We have seen other drivers doing a lot in their home countries.
“You have to be careful, even if people expect a lot from him, but you have to be very clean and say ‘Let’s focus on the racing’ and do that [the marketing commitments] either the week before or the week after but not on the race weekend.”
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