Red Bull driver Max Verstappen’s race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase’s previous comments about the Dutchman have come to light following the duo’s recent exchange of words. The three-time world champion and his race engineer share a close bond and are not afraid to call each other out on the team radio during races.
Lambiase has been with the Dutch driver since his first race with Red Bull in Spain in 2016, playing a key role in his success in the sport.
However, while appearing on the Talking Bulls podcast during the dominant 2023 season, GP Lambiase discussed how Max Verstappen would react if they were not winning races consistently. The Red Bull engineer said:
“My biggest fear is the moment that we do have increased competition and we’re not winning every race because you see how he’s treating me at the moment! And he’s winning every race. So I’m really not looking forward to it again.”
Verstappen replied:
“I think it’s gonna be fine.”
GP: my biggest fear is the moment that we do have increased competition and we’re not winning every race cuz you see how he’s treating me atm (2023) and he’s winning every race!
Max: Oh dear!
GP: I’m really not looking forward to it again
Max: I think it’s gonna be fine pic.twitter.com/6iUNSCTjSH— zax (@maybezax) July 22, 2024
The duo were in the headlines after the 2024 Hungarian GP last weekend. They were not in agreement and had a heated radio exchange.
When asked about it by RacingNews365, Max Verstappen shut down claims of the chatter being ‘worse than normal’ and said:
“I don’t agree with that. I was just annoyed, of course, with today. Maybe the team at the time didn’t realize I think what they did wrong or they maybe didn’t see was so severe. But of course, in the car, you have also feelings. Yeah, I already said that maybe some people are not on the same wavelength. It’s as severe as it is.”
Red Bull team boss gives his take on Max Verstappen-GP Lambiase radio exchange
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said Max Verstappen and Gianpiero Lambiase would sort things out themselves as they had a ‘direct line of communication’.
As per Crash.net, Horner said:
“Everybody sees that we need to find more performance, and everybody’s working hard to do that. We’ll have whatever discussions [needed] behind closed doors.“Max was frustrated. Which you can understand, he has a very direct line of communication with his engineer. That’s something that they’ll discuss between the two of them.”
Max Verstappen finished the Hungarian GP in P5 after starting the race from P3. He got undercut by Lewis Hamilton in his fight for the final podium position. The two rivals collided in the race’s final laps, causing the Dutch driver to go airborne and slip back to P5 behind Charles Leclerc, where he eventually finished.