“It completely f***ed my race,” Max Verstappen had said over the team radio in Budapest. The Dutchman had been in an incendiary mood as he dropped from the third spot to fifth as Red Bull’s race strategy backfired. The 26-year-old’s tirade that he directed at his crew became a topic of debate that divided the F1 world. Some of Max’s critics even called him out for mistreating his race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, and the rest of the Red Bull entourage at the pits.
Verstappen’s weekend in Budapest was not going well right from the moment he stepped foot in the Hungarian capital. In the first and second rounds of Free Practice on Friday, he had ranked second behind Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris respectively. But on Saturday, he dropped further down as he came home with a P3 position at the third Practice Session. Finally, in Quali, both the McLarens of Norris and his teammate, Oscar Piastri, surpassed Max and thus, the Red Bull racer started the Hungarian GP from the third spot. And he was hoping to improve upon that position and get a race win, but, Red Bull’s tire strategy failed him.
As Max Verstappen fell out of the podium positions, his temper rose and he blamed it all on his team’s tactics. He said to Lambiase over the team radio, “You guys gave me this s*** strategy, OK? I’m trying to rescue what’s left. F***.” While his critics took offense at Max’s conduct, a pair of Red Bull teammates have now come up to defend the Dutch lion’s comments. Twin brothers Jon and Matt Caller, who act as Verstappen’s first mechanics, came to his rescue against the heavy scrutiny Max has faced following his Hungarian GP outburst.
The Caller brothers said to Telegraaf, “He [Max Verstappen] recently received a lot of criticism because he let himself go over the on-board radio in Budapest. But let’s be honest: is it fair to judge someone on a few onboard radios in the heat of the moment? Max demands the utmost from himself, but also from us. His outbursts are nothing personal and everyone knows it. There’s no room for bullshit with him, that’s what makes him so good.” The twin mechanics followed their statement with remarks on Max Verstappen’s racing talent–so, what did they say?
Max Verstappen’s Red Bull mechanics swear he is ‘AI-perfect’
Having debuted in Formula 1 at the unimaginable age of 17, Max Verstappen has broken records left and right to get where he is today. And in the words of Jon and Matt Caller, the Dutchman is the epitome of an ideal racer. So, they said, “Do you know what it is: If you were to ask AI [Artificial Intelligence] a Formula 1 world champion, you would get Max Verstappen. That kid lives and breathes racing. He always tells it like it is and only wants to win.”
However, Max Verstappen’s craze for “living and breathing racing,” both on and off the tracks, might have affected him during his Hungarian GP outing. On the night before the Main Race on Sunday, he hardly got a wink of sleep as he was up racing online for his sim racing squad, Team Redline. But Max negated the opinions that staying up late caused him to lose in Budapest. He said, “It’s always when you don’t win the race, you will blame it on ah, you were staying up until 3 a.m.”
So, Max Verstappen is trying to juggle his regular F1 racing as well as his sim racing careers on his two hands. But do you think this is possible for him?
