Jos Verstappen and co-driver Jasper Vermeulen escaped without injury after their \u0160koda rolled during the opening special stage of the Rallye de Wallonie on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The Dutchman, father of four-time F1 drivers’ champion Max Verstappen, was competing in the Belgian Rally Championship event when the incident occurred on a right-hand corner that proved more treacherous than anticipated.<\/p>\n
“It was a right-hand bend that I had to take in fourth gear. It was dusty, there was gravel on the surface,” Verstappen explained on the Belgian Rally Championship’s Instagram channel.<\/p>\n
“I think I went into the corner a bit too fast, and at the end of the corner, the car broke away. Then we hit a post. The post whipped the car around, and then we landed on the roof.”<\/p>\n
The 52-year-old former Formula 1 driver has been actively competing in rallying for several years since retiring from single-seater racing.<\/p>\n
Verstappen made 107 F1 starts between 1994 and 2003, driving for teams including Benetton, Simtek, Arrows, Tyrrell, Stewart and Minardi, securing two podium finishes during his career.<\/p>\n
Since transitioning to rallying, Verstappen has become a regular competitor in both national and international events, often partnering with experienced navigators like Vermeulen.<\/p>\n
The severity of the crash was evident from the extensive damage to their \u0160koda, which forced an immediate retirement from the rally. However, both occupants were able to exit the vehicle unaided.<\/p>\n
“The most important thing is that Jasper and I came out of the car safely,” Verstappen emphasised. “It was a big impact. But we sit in such safe cars, that shows again. I’m glad we came out of it well.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jos Verstappen and co-driver Jasper Vermeulen escaped without injury after their \u0160koda rolled during the opening special stage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3518,3521,3519,3522,3520,3517,3515,3513,3516,3514,111,139,69,3512,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-400023","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-daniel-ricciardo","9":"tag-f1-calendar","10":"tag-f1-live","11":"tag-f1-results","12":"tag-f1-standings","13":"tag-ferrari","14":"tag-formula-1","15":"tag-lewis-hamilton","16":"tag-max-verstappen","17":"tag-motorsport","18":"tag-new-zealand","19":"tag-newzealand","20":"tag-nz","21":"tag-racing","22":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}