SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium — Max Verstappen has defended the way he speaks to his race engineer over team radio, saying it is important to be able to criticise decisions made by the Red Bull pit wall.
“It’s quite impressive how we let ourselves get undercut,” he said over team radio. “It’s completely f—ed my race.”
When his engineer Gianpiero Lambiase questioned the way he was treating his tyres following his second pit stop, Verstappen responded: “No, mate, don’t give me that s— now.
“You guys gave me this s— strategy, OK? I’m trying to rescue what’s left. F—.”
Speaking ahead of this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix, Verstappen said he and Lambiase would discuss the exchanges but feels no reason to change the way they interact over the team radio.
“You know, if people don’t like my language, then don’t listen in, turn the volume down you know,” he said. “I’m very driven to success, I think I’ve proven that already, I always want to optimise stuff, now people can argue that he might not be so vocal on the radio but that’s their opinion.
“My opinion is that it needs to be said at the time to maybe also try and force that the second pit stop would have been a bit different, that’s how it goes. We are very open minded, very critical of each other, been working for us very well so I don’t expect that to change.
“That’s our approach, I think it’s important you can be critical, because in this world we are living now I feel anyway a lot of people can’t take criticism anymore like it used to be and I don’t want to end up like that.”
Verstappen also pointed out that F1 is unusual among sports in that live conversations during the event are broadcast over the world feed.
“In other sports people say things but they don’t have a mic attached to their mouths,” he added. “So in a way for the broadcast you can argue that, I don’t care, I say what I want, but that’s our sport naturally.
“You’re communicating a lot with the pit wall, you have the opportunity to talk, maybe other sport you swear yourself about stuff that you didn’t like, a teammate didn’t pass the ball, you call them whatever it is, there is no mic, just how our sport is I guess.”
Verstappen also dismissed suggestions he had been short-tempered due to a lack of sleep after taking part in a 24-hour online sim race the night before the Hungarian Grand Prix.
“I raced until 3 a.m., but it’s not something new,” he added. “For me, it’s something very important in my life.
“Now there are anyway not any other sim races coming up anyway, so no one needs to worry about that. It’s always when you don’t win the race, you will blame it on ah, you were staying up until 3 a.m., oh he’s one kilo overweight, there is always things to make up that you know you can argue about when you don’t win a race.
“But for example at Imola, I do win the race, both of them. So for me, this is not something new. I’ve been doing this since 2015. This is not something that is any different in my preparation. I’ve won three world championships.
“I think I know pretty well what I can and what I cannot do, and I’m always very hard on myself what is allowed and isn’t allowed. I think with all the experience that I have in Formula One, I think I know quite well what is possible.”
Source: www.espn.com