Photographer Says His Images Helped F1 Champion Max Verstappen Drive Faster
A racing photographer has claimed that his camera work once helped the reigning Formula 1 World Champion Max Verstappen to go even faster.
Frits van Eldik has a long-standing association with Max Verstappen and his father Jos and while speaking on The DRS Race Show podcast, Van Eldik explains that being a trackside photographer can give him a perspective others don’t have which he can feedback to the drivers.
“I think the most important thing is that you are taken seriously in the world, also in terms of information provision. If I see something that I think matters, I will always pass it on to a driver, at least if I like them,” Van Eldik says on the podcast, as quoted by F1 Maximaal. “You only have to sell nonsense once and then no one will take you seriously anymore.”
And Van Eldik even once helped a young Max Verstappen — who is now three-time Forumla 1 world champion — get round a corner faster.
“You have to make sure you always come up with the right things and say: pay attention to this or pay attention to that,” Van Eldik says.
“I even had it with Max early in his career where I said: ‘I see off the track that your teammate is doing this, and you are doing that. I don’t know what the difference is.’
“Then a day later he was super fast, and then he walked by with a picture, because I had pictures of that corner, and then he said: ‘See? Is it okay now?’ That’s just funny, but I just want to be taken seriously as a photographer, but also as a person and as an expert on the game.”
Van Eldik (pictured below with Max) has been taking photos of the successful racing family for a long time: He even took a photo of a one-day-old Max with his parents Sophie and Jos.
The 55-year-old racing enthusiast says that he grew up surrounded by cars because his father owned a garage. But his dad was also a photography enthusiast and on his website, Van Eldik says he “was impressed by the pictures that showed up on a piece of paper when you dropped it in some kind of liquid in the darkroom”.
Van Eldik has been attending Formula 1 races since 1989 and has captured roughly 450 Grand Prix.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
