In the sweltering heat of Budapest, it wasn’t just the surface of the track that was scorching hot at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
So did Red Bull driver Max Verstappen.
From the opening lap, when Verstappen was instructed by his team to hand second place to Lando Norris as race officials investigated, alleging that Verstappen had gone off track and gained an advantage, to the post-race media session, the Red Bull driver was furious. Not only did Verstappen watch the McLaren one-two punch of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris finish first (eliminated both Red Bull’s lead in the constructors’ championship and Verstappen’s lead over Norris in the drivers’ race), but in the closing stages of the race, his RB20 was briefly airborne after contact with Lewis Hamilton.
The incident was investigated and dismissed by race officials as a racing accident, but it only increased Verstappen’s frustration. The driver had several brief exchanges with race engineer Giampiero “GP” Lambiase, at one point telling Lambiase “[n]Hey, don’t give me this bullshit. You guys taught me this bullshit strategy, didn’t you? I’m trying to save what’s left.”
In a separate exchange after the contact with Hamilton, Lambeth described Verstappen’s continued ranting over the radio as “childish”.
Verstappen’s anger continued in the post-race media box.
“Of course I’m not happy,” Verstappen said after the race, “Obviously it’s a day where you just don’t have the pace compared to McLaren, so you try to do what’s right on the strategy and of course you hope, but today it wasn’t.” [stop]it’s not ideal to be discounted, but you know what, you might get caught out.
“And they leave me out again [in the second round of stops] “There we were basically immediately stuck in traffic with backmarkers, and on days when the car is not the quickest you have to take advantage of undercuts… You can’t rely on little pace advantages,” the Red Bull driver continued. “Maybe last year we could have, because the car was significantly faster than everyone else, but where we are now I don’t think we can do that anymore, and I think that’s why today was a tough race for us.”
Verstappen’s final point may be the most salient of what he said. As he pointed out after the British Grand Prix, Red Bull’s margins are very narrow right now. At Silverstone, the team got every strategic decision right, from when to pit to which compound to use at the end, and yet Verstappen could only manage second place. Last year’s RB19 might have put the team in a position to have a day like today. If we take Verstappen’s points about strategic mistakes at face value, he would still have won by around 10 seconds.
This year, those mistakes, combined with the RB20’s relative lack of pace, meant he was fighting for the podium, battling Hamilton on the final laps as McLaren built up an ever-increasing lead.
“We have to work, which means suddenly next weekend [in Spa] “We can put new upgrades on the car so it’s definitely a problem,” Verstappen continued.
“We know we are inferior to McLaren and of course that’s not nice, but we have to analyse our stuff and think how we can improve our current overall package. But I don’t think it’s going to be easy. We’ll see how we evolve next week, but at the moment I think we’re behind in race pace, qualifying pace. [McLaren].”
Verstappen also addressed the tense radio messages with the GP in his post-race comments.
“I don’t think there’s any need to apologise,” the Red Bull driver said, “you just need to do a better job. I don’t know why people think they can’t have a voice on the radio. It’s a sport. If people don’t like it, they can stay home.”
Next week’s Belgian Grand Prix is the final race before the summer break, so the race and the break come at a crucial time for Red Bull. Sergio Pérez managed to redeem himself for the team on his side of the garage, working his way up to seventh place despite starting from the back of the grid after spinning in Q1 on Saturday, but McLaren’s one-two finish has seen the Woking-based team overtake Ferrari into second in the constructors’ championship.
And now they are just 51 points behind Red Bull.
Every week I think back to the comments made by Frédéric Vasseur in the Ferrari hospitality space after Norris’ win at the Miami Grand Prix, and although he was talking about Ferrari at the time, what he said could also be applied to McLaren.
“It’s true that we’ve done a better job and put everything together compared to a year ago. We’re there. [Red Bull] “We’re feeling a little bit of pressure. We need to be a little more aggressive in our strategy,” Vasseur said in Miami.
“They are no longer in the comfortable position they were last year, where it didn’t matter what happened after the second lap, they were at the front. I think this is a game changer in terms of race management,” Vasseur added.
“And this is an opportunity for us because if we can take another step, I think we’ll be in a position to compete with them every weekend.”
At the moment the pressure is definitely on Verstappen and Red Bull.
Things escalated in Budapest on Sunday.
