Max Verstappen has claimed that Dutch F1 drivers were not “taken seriously for a very long time” in an “English-oriented sport” before he started winning with Red Bull.

At just 27, Verstappen stands as one of the greatest drivers in history having secured a fourth consecutive World Championship in the F1 2024 season.

Max Verstappen: Dutch drivers ‘weren’t taken seriously’ before

The Red Bull driver, who was born in Belgium but competes under the Dutch flag, is the only F1 race winner to emerge from the Netherlands in the sport’s 75-year history.

Verstappen’s father Jos became the first Dutch driver to secure a podium finish in 1994, with the Netherlands producing the likes of Christijan Albers, Robert Doornbos, Giedo van der Garde and Nyck de Vries – who scored just six points between them in F1 – as well as Verstappen since the turn of the century.

Verstappen has argued that Dutch drivers struggled to establish themselves in “English-oriented” F1 for a long time.

But he believes the situation is improving in light of his recent dominance with Red Bull, having one 53 of the last 90 races stretching back to the start of his maiden title-winning season in 2021.

With 63 victories in total, Verstappen sits third in the all-time list of F1 race winners, 28 adrift of Michael Schumacher (91) and 43 behind Lewis Hamilton (105).

He told Dutch publication De Telegraaf: “As a Dutchman, you weren’t really taken seriously for a very long time.

“If you look at the dominant countries in motorsport, we were not among them. That is changing now.

“Formula 1 is an English-oriented sport and in terms of media and things like that you are in the minority.

“But in terms of drivers, it is increasingly being established that very good drivers can also come from the Netherlands and not just from the standard racing countries.”

Verstappen’s latest comments come at the end of a year in which he was embroiled in a war of words with a number of UK-based F1 pundits, including the 1996 World Champion Damon Hill.

Hill likened Verstappen to Dick Dastardly, the villain from the Wacky Races cartoon series, after the Red Bull driver was hit with two 10-second penalties for separate incidents with title rival Lando Norris during the Mexican Grand Prix in October.

Following his resounding victory in Brazil a week later, Verstappen responded to widespread criticism of his driving standards by pointing out the absence of British media in the post-race press conference after Norris’s title hopes suffered a severe blow.

Verstappen quipped that UK reporters had “run to the airport” in light of Norris’s disastrous race, with his father later claiming that the “negative journalists from England” had inspired his dominant performance at Interlagos.

Ahead of the next race in Las Vegas, Hill announced that he would part company with British broadcaster Sky F1 at the end of the F1 2024 season after a 12-year stint.

It is unclear whether Hill’s decision to leave Sky F1 was related to his comments on Verstappen, with FIA steward and former Sky F1 pundit Johnny Herbert revealing the 64-year-old was left “very unhappy” with the public response to his views on the World Champion.

At the end of the season, Verstappen vowed to keep speaking out against a perceived bias in the British media – claiming the commentary surrounding him would be different if he was competing against a non-British driver such as Ferrari star Charles Leclerc.

He told the Press Association: “Sometimes in racing situations, or battles, or certain penalties, and the way people look at success and how much credit they give you or not, I definitely feel that there is a bias.

“The problem in F1 is that 80 to 85 per cent of the media is British. And I did feel that some things which were written about me were not fair.

“I am not going to sit here and single out one broadcaster, but I just had to laugh about what was said. I was like: ‘Whatever.’

“At the end of the day yes, [I have four titles] and they are the ones in front of a microphone.

“I speak out. I don’t care. If I don’t agree with something I will tell you.

“On the track, I will put it all on the line. I am not going to back out. I want to win. That needs to be the end result.

“Some people criticise me for that, but most of them don’t have a championship-winning mentality so they don’t understand. And they will never understand that kind of approach.

“It depends a lot if you are fighting against a British driver. If I was fighting Charles, for example, it would be way less of a problem.”