The 24-year-old also recalled occasions when the whole group went karting, and the parents had to quickly intervene when things would get out of hand while youngsters Max, Mick and Gina were at the wheel.
“We always went karting in two-seaters,” Verstappen added. “Michael with Mick or Gina, my father with me.
“But when it got too dangerous, the fathers quickly took over!”
When Verstappen Jnr entered F1 as a fresh-faced teenager, he helped bring an excitement for the sport in the Netherlands that had been missing since his father’s racing days.
And when he won the title last season, there was even more delight in his home country as he had become the first Dutch F1 champion.
It’s a story not dissimilar to Schumacher’s own effect on the sport’s popularity in his own country – until his arrival and success in F1, Germany had not exactly been a hotbed of excitement for the sport.