Sainz and Verstappen on their 'racing dads'

Youngsters are usually a bit embarrassed by their parents, seeking any opportunity to escape their clutches. After all, would you want your dad hanging around while you try to look cool in front of your mates? And there are few worlds cooler to be hanging around in than Formula 1...

But it's different for Carlos Sainz Jr and Max Verstappen. The F1 rookies and Toro Rosso team-mates see their respective fathers as iconic figures within their chosen profession, and valuable allies that can help them progress.

Neither are 'typical' racing dads in that sense, as both have enjoyed successful careers in top-line motorsport. Jos 'the boss' Verstappen started 106 grands prix between 1994 and 2003, finishing on the podium twice (in his debut season), while Carlos Sainz Sr was a double World Rally champion in the 1990s.

For Verstappen Jr, the father-son relationship is quite involved, as Jos has been immersed in Max's career from the start as a hands-on mechanic and engineer.

"I don't see him as a typical racing dad because I think there is not one father and son relationship like we have," Max tells Autosport.

"Basically we did everything together. He did my engines, everything [in karting]. We were on the dyno almost every day, trying to improve the engines together. I think not many fathers have this with their son.

Jos Verstappen was in at the deep end in F1 alongside Michael Schumacher at Benetton in 1994 © LAT

"You get more and more experienced all the time, but I always like him to be around. To me, it's a very normal feeling because we never did anything else in the past."

The benefit of having a father with great motorsport experience is the chance to learn from that expertise. Verstappen Sr's own F1 career did not pan out the way he hoped, but the rocky road he travelled - being team-mate to Michael Schumacher in his first season then jobbing around at lowly teams - is rich in career lessons.

"It all went quite similar to how I did it," says Max, who graduated to F1 this season after a sole season of single-seater racing in European Formula 3, while Jos stepped up after winning the 1992 Benelux Opel Lotus series and German F3 in 1993, then sensationally testing for McLaren and Footwork/Arrows in F1. "He had a short period in lower categories and then he made the jump to F1.

"Of course everybody knows the story of what happened afterwards - it all went a bit 'the wrong place at the wrong time'.

"And then afterwards it's very difficult, if you have a difficult season, to get back to a top team, and unfortunately he didn't have a chance afterwards to prove himself again, for many reasons.

"Still I think he's a great driver. Every time I went out go-karting, or whatever we did, he was always very competitive and good at it, so he's a real fighter.

"What I like is that after F1 he gave up his career to help me. How many fathers do that? You can look at many dads that enjoy racing so much themselves that they don't have so much time for their child and to be really involved.

Jos Verstappen watches his son in F3 testing at the Hungaroring last year © XPB

"But my dad did that, and I'm really thankful for that because without him I wouldn't be here, that's for sure."

It's clearly a risky strategy trying to follow a path that ultimately didn't pay off for his father, but the Verstappens always reckoned Max would learn faster if he plunged straight into the deep end, rather than gradually edging his way through shallower water...

"It was not an easy decision, but I felt much more comfortable in F3 cars, so there's no reason to do two-litres [Formula Renault]," Verstappen Jr explains. "He [Jos] was also convinced and it all worked.

"You shouldn't make it easier. Everybody was following the trend; everyone went to two-litres. We said: 'maybe we have to do it differently?' and go to F3.

"If we were going to do it, we were going to do it against proper competition. There are always people around saying: 'it's too easy, there's no competition', and I never wanted that. I think last year as well, the competition was very high in F3, with a lot of experienced drivers.

"The thing we did better than in his career, I think, was that I was not starting in a world championship team in F1. You're not in a team with Michael Schumacher!

"It was all a bit different back then. There were some other things not so much controlled and you could do stuff with the car. Now everything is properly checked, so it's a much fairer sport..."

Verstappen spent most of his F1 career as an underdog in small teams such as Simtek © LAT

Verstappen Jr always appears much older than his 18 years (he only recently passed his driving test!), and much of that is down to the education given to him by his racing dad, something that continues even now with Verstappen Sr a keen spectator at every grand prix this year.

"It's definitely not something that's disturbing me," says Max. "He still has some tips for me sometimes: 'keep focused' or 'it's only Friday'. It's a good help, still.

"He knows when to approach me and not, especially from all the years before, he knows exactly when.

"But sometimes when he really needs to tell me something, he comes in and he tells me. When I'm not doing 100 per cent like I should do, or whatever, he will tell me. To keep my feet on the ground, he will tell me.

"[The relationship] is almost the same [as it was back in karting], the only thing is that I have to do stuff more myself now, especially the travelling bit, and dealing with the team.

"But that's more about experience as well. You basically grow into it."

For team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr, the relationship is different. He is almost three years older than Verstappen, while his own father is less 'involved' and more of an interested spectator, who has tried to instil professional values from an early age while watching his son progress from the sidelines.

"I think how my dad has been in his career reflects a lot how he behaved with me, especially in the early stages of my career," explains Sainz Jr.

Sainz Sr has tried to give his son space in F1 © LAT

"He was constantly speaking to me about how professional I had to be, how methodical with everything, how into detail with everything, how perfect with everything because he was a perfectionist.

"From the beginning he tried to put this into my head, tried to get me to remember what tyre pressure I was using and investigate and know about what I was driving.

"This is what he cared most about. He never told me hold to drive, how to take a corner how to overtake, because he believed this comes with talent, and he believed I had the talent.

"It was tough times, because at 11, 12, 13 years old you don't care too much. You want to go and have a hot chocolate with your team-mates in the go-karting world, and just drive and enjoy it.

"But I had to be there, trying to remember, because I knew at the end of the day he'd ask: 'So what was your tyre pressure?' or 'what did you do with the set-up?'

"I had to answer and I couldn't really fake it because he was asking the mechanics! He was testing me!"

Sainz says this intense pressure to think about his racing in a technical and professional way from an early age caused a few tense moments between him and his father.

Sainz's dedicated approach earned him two WRC titles © LAT

"He's been very hard with me," Sainz Jr adds. "He will tell you. He's been proper hard, and whenever I was doing something wrong he was the first one to point it out.

"It's his personality; he cannot change. But it made me stronger and more self-confident and self-critical. He believed there were already a lot of people around me telling me how good I was...

"Sometimes I was speaking to him about it and I say: 'You're a bit like Helmut Marko!' and we were laughing about it. It was good because it prepared me well and I think it's what I needed.

"I would not change it, even if it was tough times and it caused it tough moments with him."

Ultimately, the 'tough love' approach has helped Sainz progress all the way to F1 with Toro Rosso this year, where he has particularly impressed the team with his analytical approach and technical feedback...

"It took me time to feel the benefit, until I jumped to single-seaters where everything is much more complex," Sainz Jr says.

"It paid me a lot in my last year in my simulator work for Red Bull, and the support races. I also did the last testing [of 2014] in Abu Dhabi, which gave me the last 10 per cent of chances that I needed to become a Formula 1 driver.

Sainz's Red Bull test was make or break © LAT

"They realised that I was serious when I started giving my feedback about the car and about what I felt, and it was in line with what [Daniel] Ricciardo was saying all year. It was then when I said that all the hard work and all the pain is paying now."

Sainz Jr says he is grateful for this education now he's in F1, but as a kid it was frustrating trying to live up to the expectation of a name made famous by two WRC titles, and living in the shadow cast by that success.

"Now I feel it's an advantage, but if you asked me when I was 12, 13 years old I was saying not, because I didn't have a name [of my own]," he explains. "I was 'the son of', 'the son of', 'the son of', and people wanted to beat me, to say 'I beat the son of Carlos Sainz', 'I'm better than the son of Carlos Sainz'.

"I felt everyone was against me, and it was frustrating, but at the end it made me stronger, made me better."

He says the relationship between them has also changed this year, as Carlos Jr has made his own way in F1 while his dad is still occupied professionally with Peugeot's Dakar Rally project, so cannot attend all the races to support his son.

"This year has been quite different to all the other years I've had him beside me, because he decided to take a step back," Sainz Jr adds. "He doesn't come to all the races. He has his own racing also, which I think is good to keep him busy.

"His racing gives him motivation in his life, and not have all his focus directly on me.

Sainz Sr is busy with his own motorsport programme too

"It's a bit different, but I have him more as support. Whenever I have a doubt, or I don't know how to say I want a thing in a political way, or how to say some things on the radio without upsetting anyone, these are things that at 53 years old he knows the way to say them, and how to help me to do it.

"Especially after last year he has a lot more trust in me, as he saw the huge step I made in maturity and performance and he told me from the beginning: 'look, now there's 450 people working for you and to be competitive. I don't think the team or those 450 people rely on your dad'.

"They want to see a man and a guy with self-confidence, not a guy with someone next to me saying everything I need to say.

"He told me: 'don't worry, you have me here for whatever you need, and whenever you doubt you can ask me, but let's show them what you are made of.'"

Having a famous racing dad clearly isn't easy at times, but the value of that previous experience to the rapid career progression of Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz Jr cannot be underestimated.

Now it's down to these two to make names for themselves in their own rights, and few would doubt they've made a pretty good job of that so far, with or without their dads hanging around in the paddock...

You've read what the sons think, now get the famous fathers' views of their offspring in this week's Autosport magazine - available in shops or online