Comments from Max Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase referencing “childish” team radio messages during the Hungarian Grand Prix were not directed at the driver himself, according to Christian Horner.
Verstappen complained that Lewis Hamilton had moved under braking when the pair collided at Turn 1 late in the race, leading to a response from Lambiase – known widely as “GP” – who said: “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 insists Lambiase was not calling Verstappen childish himself, even if the insinuation was that entering into a back-and-forth could be perceived that way.
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“I think GP at that point wasn’t referring to Max, he was referring to others on the radio complaining about penalties,” Horner said. “So I don’t think GP at that point was in reference to Max. Others are obviously goading for penalties, because obviously the stewards are listening to the radio as well.
“They’ve been together for eight years and yeah there’s things that we could have done better in the race, but it’s something that we’ll talk about as a team.
“Max was frustrated. Which you can understand — he has a very direct line of communication with his engineer. That’s something that they’ll discuss between the two of them.
“Everybody sees that we need to find more performance, and everybody’s working hard to do that. We’ll have whatever discussions [required] behind closed doors.”
Verstappen had been taking part in a sim race in the early hours of the morning before Sunday’s race, as he has in the past, and Horner says he has no concerns about the driver’s preparations.
“Look, he knows exactly what’s required in a grand prix and we trust his judgment … I think people draw conclusions, Max knows what’s required, he knows what it takes to drive a grand prix car and to win grands prix and be a world champion. As a team we always work as a team and whatever discussions of how to improve will always not take place through the media.”
Red Bull had introduced an upgrade at the Hungaroring that still couldn’t keep it on terms with McLaren, and Horner admits work is needed as the threat to its constructors’ championship lead continues to grow.
“We have to look at all the data now that we have it, and look at obviously where we need to optimize, where we’re not getting the performance that we obviously want to achieve. McLaren obviously have a lot of pace at the moment, they had a big score, and we need to start scoring big points from next weekend onwards.”
With Sergio Perez recovering to seventh place from 16th on the grid after a crash in qualifying, Horner hopes the drive leads to a cleaner weekend for the Mexican in Belgium, but suggests it wasn’t enough to guarantee his future with the team.
“That was probably Checo’s strongest race since China I would say, so he should take some confidence out of [Sunday’s] race, if he’d have qualified more in position he’d have been in a much more competitive position. [Qualifying] is something that has to change.”
