Christian Horner mediated with Max Verstappen and Gianpiero Lambiase
For Red Bull's team manager, the little crisis between Max Verstappen and his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase is a normal stage in such a relationship. He says the driver should be allowed to express himself.
Behind the helmets and overalls, Formula 1 drivers are first and foremost human beings, with their emotions and frustrations. The Hungarian weekend once again demonstrated this. The tensions between Max Verstappen and his race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, reached a peak, forcing Christian Horner to act as a mediator.
« It’s like a little therapy session,” joked the Red Bull team director, referring to the meeting that followed the stormy race in Budapest. « We sat down, we talked, and we turned the page,” he added.
The heated radio exchanges between Verstappen and Lambiase had caused a stir. The Dutch driver, frustrated by a strategy he deemed dubious, did not hesitate to express his anger. “When he is frustrated, he vents,” Horner explained with some indulgence. “It’s a part of his personality that makes him as good as he is.”
Let Max Verstappen express himself
The director of the Austrian team compared Verstappen to a Premier League football player: « If you put a microphone on each player, you would hear incredible things. It’s the pressure, the competition. It’s what makes this sport what it is. » A thought that Fred Vasseur also expressed in the press conference on Friday…
Horner also emphasized the importance of letting Verstappen express his frustration. At that moment, it’s pointless to calm him down, as he explained. You’ll just fuel him more. Max, he drives with all his heart. He drives with a lot of passion.
For the team manager at Red Bull, this little crisis is a normal step in the relationship between a driver and his engineer. GP and Max have a long relationship, they know each other by heart, he recalled. They have had their ups and downs, but they have always ended up finding each other. You just let him blow off steam. He calms down very quickly. Even when we arrived at the airport in the evening, he was completely calm. Every driver is different. You listen to Oscar on the radio, he doesn’t say a word. You listen to Max, he is having a different experience.
In short, at Red Bull, tensions are managed like in any other family: with open discussions, mutual understanding, and sometimes a bit of humor. And if Verstappen was able to express his anger, it’s also because he knows he can rely on the unconditional support of his team.
