The current F1 world champion, Max Verstappen, reasserted his dominance with a powerful performance at Suzuka, nailing a 1-2 victory for Red Bull with a 12.5 seconds lead over teammate Sergio Perez.
A particularly interesting radio interaction between Verstappen and his race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, caught the ear of many during the race. Verstappen made an initial complaint of his car exhibiting understeer early in his racing stint before transitioning to an oversteer scenario. His response to this was saying, “Yeah, maybe one or two clicks less is okay.”
The race engineer replied to this by saying, “I won’t say I told you so, but understood. Thank you.” The origin of this conversation was their disagreement regarding the front wing level to deploy, revealing an ongoing debate between the pair that is generally hidden.
Post-race, Verstappen elaborated on this exchange at a top three press conference, saying, “We had, not an argument, but he said, ‘are you sure you want to do this?’ I was pretty sure and it turned out to be wrong! But he was right.” Verstappen continued by saying this disagreement serves as fuel for his drive to perform better, adding that he and his engineer share a good rapport that thrives on this dynamic.
Despite starting on the back foot at Suzuka, Verstappen felt that the improvements made between practice and qualifying improved the performance of his RB20. This paved the way for his clean sweep of pole position, victory, and fastest lap. “I was not happy up until qualifying but we did make some changes. It did help today and it made it a lot nicer to drive and control the car,” he said.
The aforementioned radio transaction presents another instance of the somewhat adversarial yet benevolent relationship that characterizes Verstappen and Lambiase’s professional bond. Verstappen believes such exchanges are conducive to his high-performance outcomes, especially as he plans for 2023.
Commenting on their rapport, Red Bull motorsport consultant, Helmut Marko, compared the pair to an “old married couple.” He added, “There was a very long discussion before about how many clicks of the front wing we had to change. Max insisted and Gianpiero was happy when it turned out that he was right in the end.”
Casting light on the astuteness of the duo, Marko remarked, “Max and his race engineer are very experienced, also together with the data engineer. They know what to do and they know what Max likes.” The decision for initial front wing level proved to be almost right, he added, saying, “We just had to make a small adjustment after the first stint, during the first stop.”