Max Verstappen brushes off fiery exchange with race engineer during Belgian GP qualifying in Spa
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Published 28/07/2023 at 21:43 GMT
Max Verstappen has brushed off his "emotional" exchange with race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase during qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix. The Red Bull driver was nearly eliminated in the second part of qualifying and launched an expletive-laden rant over team radio. The Dutchman scraped through to Q3 and took a dominant pole, although he will line up sixth following a gearbox penalty.
Max Verstappen of the Netherlands and Oracle Red Bull Racing is interviewed after qualifying ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Belgium at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps on July 28, 2023 in Spa, Belgium.
Image credit: Getty Images
Max Verstappen brushed off a fiery exchange he had with his race engineer during a thrilling qualifying session for the Belgian Grand Prix.
The Dutchman eventually sealed pole by more than eight tenths from Charles Leclerc but admitted he was "lucky" to be spared a Q2 exit after scraping through in 10th.
On a rapidly drying Spa-Francorchamps circuit, the world champion was nearly caught out in front of an army of his fans, and let his feelings be known over team radio to his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase.
“We should have just ******* pushed two laps in a row like I said,” Verstappen began, before adding: “I don’t give a f*** mate if I’m through in P10. It’s just s*** execution.”
In response, Lambiase said: “OK and then when the track was two seconds quicker for your final lap and you didn’t have any energy left, how would that have gone down?
“But you tell me what you want to do in Q3 and we will do it – sets, fuel, run plan.”
Unlike Q2, the top-10 shoot-out was without incident for Verstappen, who will line up sixth after serving a five-place grid penalty for exceeding his gearbox allowance.
He delivered a stunning 1:46.168 to top the timesheets by almost a second from his nearest challenger and apologised to Lambiase in the immediate aftermath.
He was later quizzed on the incident during his press conference and added: "That happens sometimes, most of it is normally always blocked off.
"I think we can both be quite vocal or emotional, but we always solve it afterwards, so it's all good.
"Honestly there's no need for me to comment on that here, I will discuss it [run plans] with him."
Leclerc hails improvement in changeable conditions
Leclerc will line up on pole for Sunday's race after qualifying second and benefitting from Verstappen's penalty.
He has been critical of his own driving style of late, admitting he struggles to adapt to some track conditions, but hailed a change of approach that worked around Spa.
"I have quite an aggressive driving style and in those conditions it just didn't work for me," Leclerc said.
"I was making too many mistakes and difficult to build from a solid base, so I changed a little bit the approach and it seems to be better.
"It's very difficult to give details, because it's very slight changes in terms of driving style, but that makes a big difference at the end.
"As I said, I have a very aggressive driving style whether it's in full wet or full dry, which pays off in those two conditions, but whenever I'm in between with slick tyres then it doesn't really pay off.
"I tried different directions also with tools, so the way the car is set up and the way I can change it from one corner to the other, and this gave me much more confidence straight away, and the lap time came better."
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