Max Verstappen, Red Bull, Circuit de Catalunya, 2020

Verstappen clarifies angry radio exchange with engineer

2020 Spanish Grand Prix

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Max Verstappen explained an angry radio exchange with his race engineer in which he told his team to focus on his race instead of Lewis Hamilton’s.

Towards the end of his first stint Verstappen was dropping back from race leader Hamilton and had Valtteri Bottas closing on him from behind. The Red Bull driver repeatedly urged the team to bring him in ahead of his first pit stop as his tyres were fading.

He told them he was “struggling with rear” initially, then added “turn seven is horrible now.”

“That’s increasing tail wind through turn seven, entry to exit,” his engineer replied. “Tail wind, I don’t care,” said Verstappen in response. “Just [censored by FOM] tyres.”

Verstappen grew increasingly irate as the team left him out. “Do you want me to repeat it again? The [censored by FOM] tyre is dead,” he said.

“You don’t need to repeat it again Max,” his engineer answered. Red Bull left Verstappen out in order to increase his chances of leaving the pits ahead of the Racing Point cars, which were dropping back behind him.

Verstappen urged them to bring him in anyway. “I’m losing so much time,” he said. “Who cares if they get in front, I’m easily faster.”

After Verstappen finally made his pit stop, his engineer told him: “Obviously we were nowhere nearly undercut range to Lewis. So control the peaks early on. I’ll keep you posted on Bottas’s tyres.”

Verstappen replied: “How about we just focus on our race, first, for a start instead of looking at Lewis? Because clearly on the soft tyre we were not as fast as them. So can we just make sure we do our job and let them to their job?”

“Get your head down Max, please,” his engineer answered.

After the race Verstappen said he’d lost so much time on his soft tyres the team should have brought him in regardless of how close the Racing Points were.

“I wanted to pit and they didn’t call me in so I was massively struggling on the tyres,” he said. “I lost a lot of lap time over the last two laps.

“I already said on the radio ‘I don’t care if you put me behind the Racing Point’. Of course I would pass them easily anyway. We are a lot faster, especially on new tyres. That was the conversation.”

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Keith Collantine
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42 comments on “Verstappen clarifies angry radio exchange with engineer”

  1. Just goes to show ALL drivers moan when things are not necessarily running smoothly

    1. He wasn’t moaning, he was taking charge like a real winner. His status in the paddock just increased another bit.

      1. Taking charge so much, the team ignored him completely.

        1. Good job the team ignored him, as the team were right on this occasion.

        2. and Marco told the press the team needs to be in charge of strategy. so he will get it in debrief

          1. I advise RB to take it down a nodge if they want to hold on to Max. They are not exactly in a position to make demands given their talent line up or rather lack thereof

      2. He looked like strong headed driver he is. Sometimes it serves him well, but today the team was right. The Racing Points were formidable today, as Bottas found out.

        1. Mayrton, completely agree, this red bull is not bad, if drove well it’s easily the 2nd best car, but the drivers on the 2nd seat are appalling, current and possible replacements unless they pick from outside their own academy, verstappen is performing much better than a regular driver would in that car, let’s just say the regular driver wouldn’t beat bottas so often.

        2. agree, last week MV was right when he was pressuring the Mercedes. This week Max was right to forget about Lewis and the team was actually on the same page about that, but it made sense to stay out so he could stay ahead of the RP’s and Bottas.

      3. Oh dear me,

      4. Oconomo, except, given that Bottas was within a couple of seconds of Verstappen, dropping behind the two Racing Point drivers did run the risk that Bottas could well have leapfrogged Verstappen because of the time that Verstappen might have lost whilst trying to get past them – there is no guarantee that he could have just instantly breezed past them.

        Judging from your posting history though, I get the impression from your behaviour that you would be rather more critical of this message if it had come from any other driver than Verstappen – it’d be “moaning” if it came from, say, Hamilton, Leclerc or Vettel, but when it’s Verstappen it’s “taking charge”.

      5. F1oSaurus (@)
        17th August 2020, 9:00

        Lol, when Verstappen does it it’s not moaning?

      6. He wasn’t moaning, he was taking charge like a real winner. His status in the paddock just increased another bit.

        For an actual example of taking charge, see Lewis deciding on his own strategy and his team admitting he knew better than them afterwards.

        Max just got told to shut up and get on with it, in more polite terms.

        Unsuccessful comment all round from you Oconomo. F.

    2. For once it wasn’t whining rather Max snapping his engineer out of tunnel vision into reality.

      1. Except his engineer ignored him until they were sure they’d get him out ahead of the Racing Points.

        1. All good. As we could tell by Max’s and Horner’s demeanour after the race, a satisfying well fought for 2nd place and a wedge between the Mercs again. That exchange on the radio well forgotten except for to learn from what brought the conversation about. What was going on with the tires. This was just some passionate guys in an exchange in the heat of the moment, trying to sort out their day, and I think it was just great. The fighting spirit. No hard feelings. Nothing personal. They’re at the office doing their thing. Love how Horner commented about Max having this lengthy conversation all while giving it his all. There’s so so much yet to come from Max.

  2. Initially he was complaining about ham being way too slow, and then ham picked up the pace, and suddenly he was left in the dust… i have a feeling they expected last week to repeat/closer due to heat factor but it wasnt as bad, and tyres harder too, only had a chance to do opposite of what mercedes were doing for change like last week, but they played it safe to protect one position he gained… i was surprised mercedes didnt try to undercut him when bot was 1.5 behind… was no brainer…

    1. He wasn’t complaining; he simply stated facts.

      1. “That’s increasing tail wind through turn seven, entry to exit,” his engineer replied. “Tail wind, I don’t care,” said Verstappen

        Interesting interpretation of facts!

        1. You conveniently left out the rest of the message that states the relevant fact, to prove your point: the tyres were slowing him down, likely regardless of the tailwind.

  3. Like the 70th Anniversary GP, I think Max is taking matters into his own hands. So far, he’s not been wrong. Unlike other radio whiners, Max explains there’s a problem and suggests a solution, where other drivers simply wait for the strategy to be handed to them

    1. Even the way he moans is different, right? It’s special and one could see from a mile that he is one of a kind.

    2. Adam Blumenthal
      16th August 2020, 19:01

      Ummmm. Lewis did exactly the same thing when he told his team not to use the same tires they had already put on Botas. Lewis is in a class by himself this year.

    3. I’ve heard plenty of other drivers through the years say exactly the same thing: ”Pit me now the tires are gone.” How is this any different or unique?

  4. Wait!
    No way!

    Max was whining about tyres?
    It couldn’t be!
    He doesn’t whine about tyres, he commands them to work!

  5. I guess he wasn’t so interested in his engineer’s hydratation today, then. A shame. It looks like it was really hot there.

  6. RedBull known for bold strategy choices. But it always looks like a hunch rather than AI assisted decision. The pit can see all the data and telemetry but Albon and Max wouldn’t be comparable anyway. Also Max was right, Racing Point should not be a consideration.

    I prefer F1 to banned teams for aiding drivers on tyres management. But at least if the driver knew better the team should let the drivers decide.

    The way Max communicate his intention was a bit much but they can’t discuss it in details and comfort like a zoom meeting.

  7. These current drivers are FAR too managed. Even Crofty and Brundle sounded fed up with the radio messages.

    Especially after Perez was asking the pit how HIS tyres were… ridiculous…

    Radio bans would improve F1 massively.

    1. GtisBetter (@)
      16th August 2020, 18:01

      Both had a point and both tactics would have resulted in the second place to max.

      1. GtisBetter (@)
        16th August 2020, 18:02

        That should have been a reply to you fred

        1. GtisBetter (@)
          16th August 2020, 20:26

          Not* sheez I have to pay more attention

  8. Good call by the redbull engineers and extremely short sighted thinking from max. If he were to be behind the racing point he would have lost enough time to be behind bottas when bottas would have pitted after him.

    When bottas came out of the pits he was just 2 seconds behind verstappen, if verstappen would have fought and passed the racing points bottas would have surely come out before him.

    1. The whole point for Verstappens call was not where he would come back on track, but the chance of Bottas undercutting him. Max was losing 0.5 sec/lap tp Bottas and 1.5 sec to Lewis… in other words Bottas was held up.
      If Bottas would have stopped before Verstappen he would have lost P2.

      It was never about traffic, it was about a possible undercut which RBR can’t controle

  9. Max growing sweeter by the day, something to look for post Lewis era

  10. Red Bull better be careful, in this case Marko, if they want to hold on to their biggest asset. They are not exactly living up to expectations. If they had two Albon they would be fighting for position 7 or 8 every race. Count your blessings and listen to what is being said by your driver.

    1. F1oSaurus (@)
      17th August 2020, 9:03

      Then they would design the car to suit the other driver(s).

      1. Well, I remember Max stepping intro Kvyats car and win. And I remember Albon mentioning in Spain pre season testing that his and Max driving style are the same

  11. Verstappen is the only thing stopping all this being a snoozefest..you should all be praising him…

Comments are closed.