The current F1 world champion, Max Verstappen, returned to winning with a strong performance at Suzuka, leading a Red Bull 1-2 finish by beating Sergio Perez by 12.5 seconds.
During the race, Verstappen talked with his engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, over the radio. Verstappen told Lambiase that his car was understeering at the beginning but then started to feel oversteering.
Verstappen said, “Yeah, maybe one or two clicks less is okay.”
Lambiase replied, “I won’t say I told you so, but understood. Thank you.”
After the race, it was revealed that they disagreed on what front wing level to use, which led to the radio conversation. In a press conference, Verstappen explained how the discussion motivated him.
“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!” Verstappen explained. “But he was right.”
Verstappen also mentioned how their friendly disagreements help him perform better.
“In a way it also fires me up because I am like, ‘even though I am not entirely happy with the balance now I will still try to be as consistent as I can be without shouting back at him.’ We have a great relationship and it works well like that.”
Verstappen felt better prepared after making setup changes between practice and qualifying sessions.
“I was not happy up until qualifying but we did make some changes,” he said. “I cannot go into detail on that but it did help today and it made it a lot nicer to drive and on the car control.”
This radio exchange is part of a pattern of friendly disagreements between Verstappen and Lambiase, which has become a theme of their relationship. Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko has likened them to an “old married couple” and believes their dynamic contributes to their success.
“That is the old married couple coming out again!” Marko said. “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.
“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.
“It was more or less the right decision, we just had to make a small adjustment after the first stint, so during the first stop.”