Ricciardo stands up for Verstappen after swearing and ranting in Hungary
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- Corwin Kunst
Max Verstappen let himself go quite a bit over the team radio at the Hungarian Grand Prix. Things did not go according to plan for the Red Bull Racing driver and his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase also had to take it in his stride. Daniel Ricciardo was asked at the press conference in Belgium for his opinion on his former teammate's fierce comments.
"So I heard the in-race radio stuff. I didn't hear any TV pen or post-race stuff, so I don't know if that continued," Ricciardo said. "I heard, let's say, the little conversations between him [Verstappen] and Lambiase. I put myself in this position. In some races, I'm super calm, and in other races, I'm agitated and everything frustrates me and annoys me, so I would say sometimes our actions or the way we feel is not always predictable."
"I think there was one where Lambiase said something about bringing the tyres in. Obviously, Max didn't. He just probably pushed straight away, and I would say that's coming from a place of frustration," the Visa Cash App RB driver continued. "Something leading up to that has probably made him just be like, ‘I don't care anymore, I'm just going to push and see what happens.’ So obviously, it’s probably built-up frustration during the race. It happens. I don't really know how to answer it."
Ricciardo reacted differently to Verstappen in Hungary
A driver and race engineer by no means always agree during a race, but the conversation between Verstappen and Lambiase took some extreme forms. According to Ricciardo, however, we shouldn't look for too much behind it. "Going back and forth, having conversations through the race, it's probably not ideal, but I guess we've all been there at times. For me, the race was frustrating on Sunday. For whatever reason, I chose silence and let that do the talking, and okay, on the in lap, then I said a bit more. But yeah, in a way, I couldn't be bothered kind of chatting about it through the race, because for me, what was done was done, so any talk I had kind of felt a bit hopeless or helpless. So that was my way of handling my frustration in that race. So it can vary. It's race-to-race dependent, I guess. It's a hot and sometimes very flustered environment in the cockpit," said Ricciardo.
It is possible Ricciardo will return as Verstappen's teammate after the summer. Sergio Perez is under pressure and is unsure of his spot in the second RB20. On arrival in Belgium, the Australian revealed that he is currently content with his form. But whether it will be enough to be promoted to Red Bull later in the Netherlands when the season resumes?
This article was written in collaboration with Olly Darcy