Max more careful on team radio
Published on 28 October 2016 by Stefan Meens
In the build up to the Mexican Grand Prix, Max Verstappen addressed the press in Red Bull’s motor home reflecting on his difficult weekend in Austin. At the Circuit of the Americas a DNF prevented the 19-year-old from scoring points.
The topic the journalists seemed most interested in was Max’ communication with the team via radio. During the last Grand Prix the youngster’s race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, asked Max to slow down to save tyres. Max responded with a resolute “I’m not here to finish fourth!”
“I don’t think I’ll use my radio button in future so you won’t hear anything from me”, laughs Max. “You always want to finish as high as possible. Winning is always the goal so my message made a point. I tried to overtake Rosberg the same way I overtook Raikkonen. I was able to pass Kimi straight away but I couldn’t do the same with Nico. In the end I wore my front left tyre a bit more, but it wasn’t too bad.
Max also responded to the insinuation he comes across arrogant. “Every time I push my radio button it is broadcast. It might sound a bit arrogant when I say that I am not here to finish fourth, but it is exactly what comes to my mind: I am not here finishing fourth. And that has nothing to do with arrogance – nor being arrogant with the team.”
Within the Red Bull Racing ranks, the situation was discussed and dealt with swiftly. Max is therefore disappointed that people outside the team still bring up the incident. “Some people like to hear the team radio communications, others don’t. But I guess I just won’t say anything to avoid these discussions as people interpret the radio messages the wrong way. I think I will reduce it to a simple okay, yes and no. No long sentences anymore for me - then I should be on the safe side”, laughs Max.
Another incident up for debate was Max’ botched pit stop in lap 26. The youngster showed up at his garage without being called in and his team – subsequently – was not ready for a stop. “In the last couple of days I was thinking a lot about what happened. And probably this is what I came up with: when you are driving in the car for an hour you get a bit into the comfort zone - a bit like autopilot - and I saw Daniel (Ricciardo) pit the lap before, so I thought when we are so close together in the race that I pit the next lap for my last stint. And then it went wrong - maybe from thinking too much!”
After the race, Helmut Marko – head of Red Bull’s driver programme – discussed the matter with his protégée. “Well, you sometimes have these moments. I had these kind of conversations also many times with my dad.
Looking forward to Mexico, Max is both ambitious and realistic: “We should be good around here. The long straight is not in our favour but because of the high altitude and its effect on the turbos, the speed difference shouldn’t be too great. We’ll see. We should be close in the slower corners."
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