"If people don't like my language, then don't listen in": Max Verstappen continues to push back on team radio criticism

Max Verstappen has pushed back on the criticism against the content of his team's radio messages and said that if people don't want to listen to it, they should turn the volume down. The race in Hungary was not a good one for the Red Bull driver, as he seemed irritated with how everything panned out during the race and voiced his frustrations on the team radio.

It began with Max Verstappen being forced to cede position to Lando Norris early in the race because he got the jump on him off-track. Following this, the Dutch driver was undercut by Lewis Hamilton on the first and second stops.

With the track at Budapest not being the best for pulling off overtakes, it led to frustration and some very harsh language used by Max Verstappen on the team radio.

There was also a surprise moment that saw Verstappen's race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase snap back at him after his collision with Lewis Hamilton. After the race, the driver faced some pushback in the media for how he conducted himself on the radio.

The driver, however, pushed back on these criticisms by saying that whoever has an issue with his language could turn the volume down. He told media including "RacingNews365",

"If people don't like my language, then don't listen in and turn the volume down. I am very driven to success and I have proven that already and I always want to optimise stuff."

He added,

"Now, people can argue that I might not be so vocal on the radio, but that is their opinion. My opinion is that it needs to be said at the time because we are very open-minded and we are very critical to each other as a team."

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Max Verstappen claims this process has worked for him and the team

Further backing up his claims, Max Verstappen has said that the method has worked for Red Bull and there's no need to change. He felt that it was important to be open to criticism of any kind as it leads to improvements.

The driver doubled down on how this approach had worked for Red Bull till now and didn't need changing. He said,

"That has been working for us very well so I don't expect that to change. It is important to be critical because in this world that we are living in at the moment, I feel that a lot of people can't take criticism anymore like it used to be. I don't want to end up like that."

The Red Bull driver is set to incur a 10-place grid penalty this weekend. He has won the race here for the last three years and will be hoping to pull off something special this time around to maintain his streak at Spa-Francorchamps.