Max Verstappen’s race engineer has joked that he is worried about the way he will be treated if the Dutchman’s rivals start challenging him for Grand Prix victories. Verstappen has been utterly dominant since the beginning of the year, winning 17 races on his way to yet another Drivers’ Championship title.
His partnership with long-time engineer Gianpiero Lambiase has yielded three titles in as many seasons but the latter has often had to bear the brunt of Verstappen’s touchy mid-race messages. It can often seem as if they are bickering over the radio, although their relationship continues to go from strength to strength as the success keeps coming.
Lambiase recently featured on the Talking Bulls podcast alongside Verstappen and joked that he is worried about how the 25-year-old will treat him when the likes of Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren catch up to Red Bull and start challenging them for victories.
He 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 there! I’m really not looking forward to it.”
A particularly feisty radio exchange between Verstappen and Lambiase was heard in qualifying at the Belgian Grand Prix earlier this year. The Dutch driver was furious at the end of Q2 as he tore into Red Bull’s strategy approach with a foul-mouthed rant, but Lambiase was having none of it.
Verstappen fumed: “I f***ing told you we should have done two [fast] laps in a row, like I said. I don’t give a f*** that we were P10. It’s just s*** execution.” Lambiase snapped back: “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?”
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has often been asked about the tetchy radio exchanges between Verstappen and Lambiase during races. He joked earlier this year that the pair could benefit from ‘marriage counselling’ but was quick to underline the mutual respect that has allowed their working relationship to be so successful.
“You know, sometimes it sounds like they need a bit of marriage counselling, but there’s great respect and trust between the two of them,” said Horner. “For any top sportsman, they lean on the people around them, and I think GP [Lambiase] is the one having that interaction.
“It’s been going on for about six years. Max is a tough customer and he would break many race engineers and you’ve got to have somebody who has got self-assurance who can deal with that, and GP is our Jason Statham equivalent and there’s a trust and a bond between them.”
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