Source – Newsweek
After a difficult Hungarian Grand Prix in which McLaren easily won both races, Max Verstappen has urged Red Bull to “be more on it.” Verstappen finished in P5 after making contact with former rival Lewis Hamilton.
Starting P3 on the grid, Max Verstappen’s race at the British Grand Prix quickly went awry as he ran wide at Turn 1. The extra tarmac in the run-off area unexpectedly allowed him to get ahead of Lando Norris. However, race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase instructed Verstappen to relinquish the position to Norris to avoid a penalty. This marked the beginning of a long and challenging afternoon for the reigning champion, who was vocal on the team radio after being undercut twice by his rivals.
After his final stop, Verstappen was chided for overworking his medium tires, to which he responded, “No mate, don’t give me this s*** – you guys gave me this s*** strategy, okay? I’m trying to rescue what’s left.” His frustration was palpable as he reflected on the race in the media pen. “Of course not happy,” Verstappen stated. “On a day where we’re already lacking pace compared to McLaren, you hope to do the right things with the strategy, which today was not the case.”
The Dutch driver was particularly irked by being undercut during the first stop, but his frustration peaked when he was left out too long during the second round of stops, causing him to get stuck in traffic with backmarkers. “On a day where the car’s not the quickest, you need to capitalize on undercuts. You can’t rely on a little pace advantage. Maybe last year, with the car being quite a lot faster than everyone else. But in the position we’re in now, we can’t do that anymore,” he explained.
Verstappen acknowledged that beating the McLarens was unlikely but believed that a P3 finish was achievable with a better strategy. “Naturally, that frustrates me because I want things to be done better. I’m realistic – today, we couldn’t have beaten the McLarens, but a P3 I think was on the cards if we would have just been on it a bit more.”
Addressing the need for changes at Red Bull, Verstappen remarked, “We need to work. It’s not like suddenly next weekend [in Spa] we can have new upgrades on the car, so yeah, it is a problem. We know that we’re lacking compared to McLaren, and it’s not nice, but we have to analyze our stuff, how we can improve our overall package currently. But I don’t think that’s something very easily done.”
Verstappen’s mood worsened after a dramatic incident with Lewis Hamilton at Turn 1, seven laps from the end. The pair were battling for P3 when Verstappen clipped Hamilton’s right-front wheel, sending him into the air. The stewards reviewed the incident after the race and ruled that no further action was required. Verstappen defended his move, stating, “I went for a move that was fully on, but then in the middle of the braking zone, when I’m already committed to the move, he suddenly just keeps moving right. If I wouldn’t have turned while braking straight, I would have made contact with him. So I went in the air.”
Reflecting on the incident, Verstappen added, “People always make a lot about what happened in Austria, ‘it was not correct’, blah blah blah. But that’s on the initial move and then you just brake straight and you hold the wheel quite straight. Now it was not on the initial move but afterwards, during the braking zone [Lewis] keeps turning right – you cannot do that when someone’s committed to the inside. That’s why I locked up, because otherwise we would have collided anyway, because he would have just turned in on me.”
When asked if he planned to apologize to his team for his irate radio messages, Verstappen was unapologetic. “I don’t think we need to apologize. We just need to do a better job. I don’t know why people think that you cannot be vocal on the radio. This is a sport. If some people don’t like that, then stay home.”
As Oscar Piastri led McLaren to a one-two finish, teammate Lando Norris closed the gap to Verstappen in the drivers’ championship to 76 points, setting the stage for an exciting Belgian Grand Prix next week.
