Jos Verstappen began 1998 without a seat. In 1994 he had stood on the podium twice at Benetton, alongside Michael Schumacher, and then spent three seasons driving for teams that had little to offer him: Simtek, which went bankrupt halfway through 1995, Footwork, and Tyrrell. When Tyrrell was sold and the new management chose other drivers, he was left on the sidelines. The season started without Jos on the grid.
At Stewart, too, things were not going well. Jackie Stewart had founded the team two years earlier with his son Paul, with Ford as works partner and a white car with a stripe of Scottish tartan across it. The first season had brought a second place in Monaco. The 1998 SF-2 was finished too late and tested too little. The new Ford Zetec-R V10 produced around 735 hp at 16,000 rpm, but often failed to last. After seven races Rubens Barrichello had four points and Jan Magnussen one, scored in Canada. It was his first championship point. Two weeks later Verstappen took over his seat.
He made his debut on 28 June at Magny-Cours, fifteenth on the grid, and finished twelfth, two laps behind Michael Schumacher. It turned out to be his second-best result of the season. At Silverstone and in Austria the engine failed, at Hockenheim the gearbox. In Hungary he reached the finish in thirteenth. In the rain at Spa he was caught up in the huge start crash involving thirteen cars. He got his Stewart back to the pits, but the team had only one spare car and it went to Barrichello. Then came Monza, the Nürburgring and Suzuka: gearbox, hydraulics, gearbox again.
Nine races, two finishes, no points. Stewart finished eighth in the constructors' championship with five points. For 1999 the team chose Johnny Herbert. Verstappen became test driver for Honda's own Formula 1 project, which was cancelled after the death of Harvey Postlethwaite. In 2000 he returned with Arrows.
The team that did not keep him blossomed a year later. With the SF-3 Herbert won the 1999 European Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, and Stewart finished fourth in the constructors' championship. Then Ford bought the team and turned it into Jaguar. In 2005 that became Red Bull Racing, the team with which Max Verstappen became world champion four times.
The model is the car from that half-season: number 19, white with the tartan stripe, HSBC on the flanks and Verstappen's name with the Dutch flag on the cockpit rim. A 1:43 Minichamps, bought via Marktplaats in 2020. In my display cabinet it stands in a row with Jos's other cars, from the Benetton B194 to the orange Arrows A22.