Max Verstappen and Christian Horner set for uncomfortable meeting after 'F1 request'
Max Verstappen will sit down with his team principal ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix this weekend.
Max Verstappen will reportedly sit down for a meeting with team principal Christian Horner and race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase to clear the air following his aggressive radio communications during the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The three-time world champion was irate in the cockpit last Sunday, swearing at Lambiase repeatedly over the radio and accusing his race engineer of talking “bulls**t”. These comments landed him in hot water, but Verstappen himself does not care.
“[If] people don’t like my language, then don’t listen in, turn the volume down,” he said in Belgium. “I’m very driven [for] success, I think I’ve proven that already, I always want to optimise stuff, now people can argue that he might not be so vocal on the radio but that’s their opinion.”
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The FIA, however, have taken a dim view of Verstappen’s radio rants. According to a report from The Times, it was added to the list of topics to discuss at the F1 commission meeting on Tuesday.
At the meeting, F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali reminded teams that the sport has a growing young fanbase and that their language could be considered offensive when broadcast to the world during races.
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Verstappen believes that his swearing has a function. “It needs to be said at the time to maybe also try and force that the second pit stop would have been a bit different, that’s how it goes," he explained.
“We are very open-minded, very critical of each other, it has been working for us very well, so I don’t expect that to change. It’s important you can be critical because in this world we are living now I feel a lot of people can’t take criticism any more like it used to be, and I don’t want to end up like that.”
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Despite that view, Verstappen’s outbursts will be reviewed internally when the three-time world champion meets with Lambiase and Horner in the Red Bull motorhome. His communication style was described as “very disappointing” by an “uncomfortable” Martin Brundle on Thursday.
Hamilton was also critical. "You have to be a team leader, a team member," he said. "Maybe not so much a team leader but more so just always remember you are a team-mate with lots of people and you have to act like a world champion."
