(Motorsports news) The two again garnered notice with their discussions at various moments of the Dutchman’s overwhelming victory on Sunday after their highly publicized argument in qualifying at Spa. When Lambiase told Verstappen to “Use your head” after he had passed teammate and early leader Sergio Perez in second place, Verstappen responded, “Are we both [the two drivers] doing it or what?”
Max Verstappen reacted angrily when Lambiase said, “You just follow my instruction,” saying, “I want to know if both cars do it.” Later, his engineer ended the exchange by adamantly asking, “Max, please just follow my instruction, thank you.” Verstappen was reprimanded by Lambiase for risking too much life being taken out of his last set by pushing hard in an effort to record the fastest lap much later, following his second and final pitstop.
Before Lewis Hamilton, driving for Mercedes, seized it on the final lap of the race, Verstappen had held this position provisionally. Max stated that the divide in his tone during the radio exchanges was “probably, 50-50 in the messages” when questioned about them after his victory. Then he made a joke to Sky F1, saying, “I’m just annoyed they don’t like to do an extra pitstop, so I just want to make them at least a little bit uncomfortable so maybe they might think I’m going to push it to do another stop.”
Verstappen continued, “I know the team prefers not to make another stop, but I like to bring it up in case they become a little uneasy. “And after that, I enjoy hearing, ‘Oh no, we’re not doing that today. It’s okay. We have a great friendship and are extremely well acquainted.Additionally, Verstappen stated that his relationship with his race engineer was “very important”.
“I always find it a really important part of your performance – not only your race engineer but also everyone very close around you like your performance engineer and these kinds of things,” he continued. Naturally, your connection develops through time and you get to know one another better. “So, yeah, for sure, if he were to be removed or whatever, that would definitely not be ideal at all”, Verstappen concluded.
Also read: From sixth on the grid, Max Verstappen won the Belgian GP
