Max Verstappen has issued an apology to his Red Bull engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, for ignoring his emails in the aftermath of this month’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The duo have enjoyed a hugely successful working relationship over the years, with Lambiase playing an instrumental role in helping Verstappen to win his three Drivers’ Championship titles.
They have enjoyed a few weeks apart during the winter break but Verstappen was forced to apologise to Lambiase for refusing to acknowledge his emails after winning the final race in Abu Dhabi. The Dutchman revealed on the Talking Bulls podcast that he has not been keeping on top of his inbox, which saw him miss three important emails looking ahead to the 2024 season.
“After Abu Dhabi, I was very ill for a couple of days so I’m still recovering from that,” said Verstappen. “The travelling didn’t really help, but I know that I will have two really nice weeks where I can really just switch off and not look at my emails and F1-related stuff.
“To be honest, I have to apologise to my engineer because he sent me three emails relating to next year and I didn’t respond! I saw him today and I made up for it. You know our relationship, it’s a bromance.”
Verstappen’s relationship with Lambiase is known for being akin to that of a married couple, given the amount of bickering between them over the last few years. The pair came to verbal blows during the Belgian Grand Prix five months ago, when Verstappen was left frustrated by Red Bull’s tactical approach in qualifying.
The 26-year-old only scraped through to Q3 by a whisker and made his feelings known as he tore into Lambiase over the radio at the end of Q2. He said: “I f****** told you we should have done two [fast] laps in a row, like I said. I don’t give a f*** [that I’m through], we were P10. It’s just s*** execution.”
Lambiase was quick to fire back at Verstappen by reminding him of what could have been if he had things his own way, saying: “OK, and then when the track was two seconds quicker for your final lap and you didn’t have any energy left, how would that have gone down? But you tell me what you want to do in Q3, and we’ll do it.”
Verstappen will be counting on Lambiase’s help to make it four straight Drivers’ Championship titles next year, with Red Bull the favourites to dominate proceedings once again. Their relationship has proven to be a fruitful one thus far and there is little to suggest that anybody will be able to stop Verstappen when the action resumes in 2024.
Click here to join our WhatsApp community to be the first to receive breaking and exclusive F1 news.
