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Max Verstappen’s escalating radio exchanges and biting post-race criticism at the Hungarian Grand Prix expose the cracks emerging between himself and Red Bull as a seemingly straightforward 2024 Formula 1 title charge becomes unusually strained.
Verstappen’s message that his critics “can all f**k off” seemed inevitable in the wake of an increasingly tense, and dramatic, race for the world champion but his team also ended up in the firing line for the second time in three races.
Red Bull caught more than a few strays from Verstappen after his contentious Austrian Grand Prix battle with Lando Norris a few weeks ago, and he let rip again in Hungary on Sunday after a race in which his typically blunt back-and-forth with his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase seemed to reach new heights.
And this was more than just the usual frustration of a pushy world champion failing to deal with a race win slipping away. It reflected a wider picture of annoyance.
Verstappen criticised Red Bull’s strategy that “put me on the back foot” throughout the grand prix, gave a damning verdict on the team’s biggest upgrade of the year, and warned more than once over the weekend that he believes some inside Red Bull “are not on the same wavelength” in knowing the situation is “as severe as it is”.
Warning shots? This is more like repeat volleys of friendly fire. It has become increasingly evident this year that Verstappen harbours real frustration over Red Bull’s car development, whether that is feeling like he’s not been listened to over its ride quality issues or becoming vulnerable as rival teams improve their cars at a faster rate.
Verstappen never takes defeats well, but this was particularly bad. And that’s precisely because it was about more than one tricky weekend.
It furthers the feeling of a schism emerging at times. Verstappen is usually performing at a very high level and has previously warned that he is, effectively, papering over cracks.
Red Bull sees things differently: that when the car hasn’t been perfect, the team has still executed strategies and pitstops brilliantly, which alongside Verstappen’s own excellent driving has contributed to scoring victories when they might have only been seconds or thirds.
No doubt this would have been at the forefront of some minds when Verstappen criticised Red Bull’s strategy throughout the grand prix, and responded sharply to Lambiase’s instruction to bring his tyres in gently with: “No, don't give me that bullshit now. You guys give me the f**king strategy, OK? I'm trying to rescue what’s left, for f**k’s sake.”
That had a huge air of ‘I’m doing this all by myself’, which won’t have been missed and won’t go down well. And Verstappen won’t really believe it – he’s just annoyed.
However, it is undeniable that Verstappen has reservations about his team that weren’t there a few months ago.
That might seem over the top for a driver who leads the world championship by 76 points, especially when Red Bull’s still 51 points clear in the constructors’ standings too. But such an attitude is what Verstappen is afraid of. Red Bull’s in a dog fight and, Verstappen’s implied, some people in the team don’t seem to realise it. Team principal Christian Horner politely refuted that as he sidestepped various questions about the anger Verstappen exhibited on Sunday and the tension it conveyed.
Whether Red Bull agrees or not, Verstappen’s warnings are not without foundation. He has been critical of the limitations of the car for a long time.
This wasn’t a problem while Red Bull had a big performance advantage, but it’s more costly now the opposition have closed in - and by sticking with the car’s mechanical platform that Verstappen has raised concerns over, Red Bull might even have imposed a lower aerodynamic development ceiling on itself. Maybe that’s why others are finding bigger gains now.
The more Verstappen feels Red Bull is asking of him, the more it risks lighting a fuse that seems to be getting shorter. There are past examples, as recently as Austria three weeks ago, of Verstappen losing at least some sense of control in a grand prix when the race is slipping away from him. That will only be exacerbated when Verstappen’s in the middle of a frustrating weekend. And even further when he’s in the middle of a frustrating run of races.
This grand prix therefore seemed destined to unfold into something explosive, and there was a sense of nostalgia (in a bad way) that the extraordinary crescendo would come with Verstappen’s old sparring partner Lewis Hamilton.
Verstappen’s ill-judged lunge on Hamilton into Turn 1, in which the Red Bull locked its front brakes and vaulted over the Mercedes as it took what the stewards confirmed through data was its normal line into the corner, represented a driver losing his cool. Verstappen felt differently – he insisted it was Hamilton’s car “moving to the right” that caused him to lock up in avoidance, and it was the suggestion that critics feel he was just frustrated that led to Verstappen inviting them to “f**k off”.
In any case, the stewards decided to take no further action following a post-race investigation in which they ruled neither driver was predominantly to blame for the collision. No harm, no foul then.
But maybe there was another bit of erosion of Red Bull intra-team relations from this incident too.
It had led to further tension over the radio as Lambiase refused to refer Verstappen’s complaints about Hamilton’s defensive driving to the stewards: “I’m not even going to get into a radio fight with the other teams, Max. We’ll let the stewards do their thing. It’s childish on the radio. Childish.”
Horner claimed that was a reflection of the wider games others were playing but the meaning was clear – even if Lambiase wasn’t accusing Verstappen of being “childish” directly himself, he was clearly suggesting he was trying to engage in such behaviour.
As drivers and race engineers go, Verstappen and Lambiase are as sharp-tongued as they come. That can only be the case between two people who do, at heart, get on and have a lot of respect for each. But there’ll be a limit to what they can take and maybe this race was where it was breached.
“I won’t agree with that,” Verstappen contested. “I was just annoyed with today and maybe the team at the time didn’t realise what they did wrong or what they maybe didn’t see was so severe.
“But of course in the car you have different feelings.”
Again, though, that mismatch in judging the severity of the situation is interesting. As is the disparity in reaction.
Red Bull will always seek to dampen such disagreements but the more Verstappen feels its troubles are self-inflicted, the louder he’ll get.
