Verstappen Snaps Back At His Race Engineer During Pre-Sprint Shootout Warm-Up

Red Bull Racing F1 driver Max Verstappen snapped back at his engineer Gianpiero Lambiase during the warm-up for the Sprint Shootout.

The nervous exchange between Verstappen and his engineer Lambiase took place during a fast lap in a 10-minute Practice Familiarisation Session before the Sprint Shootout. This was an unusual case as there are no 10-minute practices on other sprint weekends in the calendar.

The 10-minute Practice Familiarisation Session was added after concerns over tire safety had been put out by FIA and Pirelli.  The suspicion has been that curbs in turns 12 and 13 have been causing damage to the tires.

The track limits were consequently revised before the sprint shootout and drivers had 10 minutes to adjust to the changes. The time was also used by the teams to gather as much data as possible from the drivers' cars ahead of the Grand Prix, which will be very demanding in terms of tire consumption.

In the case of Verstappen, the two-time World Champion was on a flying lap when his car suddenly fell out of balance and he had to counter-steer to remain in control. This manoeuvre resulted in Verstappen going off-track and as a result, abandoning his flying lap.

Following the abandonment of the flying lap, Verstappen received a radio from his racing engineer Lambiase saying: "You could have continued the lap, Max. There was more learning".

The comment met with an angry response from a short-tempered Flying Dutchman (not on a flying lap anymore at that time) who shouted back: "I was off the ******* track".

Lambiase responded by explaining there was still more to learn from the further parts of the track but called Verstappen to pits: "That's fine, but there was more learning, it's not qualifying and you could have learned from Turn Six to Turn 16. But box now."