Former trainer of Verstappen reveals: ''Max was very bad at that''

F1 News

26 May 2020 at 09:20
  • GPblog.com

Jake Aliker and Max Verstappen worked together for five years, but that ended in 2020. Verstappen ended the collaboration because Aliker was unable to attend the race weekends for private reasons.

However, five years is a long period and Aliker looked back on that in the podcast Athletic Evolution. Aliker became the trainer of Verstappen when the Dutchman made his debut in Formula 1 with Toro Rosso and it is clear from the conversation that Verstappen didn't yet manage everything to perfection.

Verstappen not completely awake

''Verstappen was awfully bad at practicing pit stops during the free practice sessions'', says Aliker laughing during the podcast. ''I had to work with him on his positioning, because every inch is important for a mechanic and can care for a tenth of a second'', says Aliker years later.

Aliker and Verstappen started working on it and it got better too. Before the races Aliker didn't have to make any adjustments, because surprisingly that went well. ''During the race Max was always very accurate. Then he was perfect and with Red Bull Racing you have a team that is known for their fastest pit stops'', concludes Aliker.