"Max, please follow my instruction and trust it" - Video of hilarious post-race banter between Max Verstappen and his engineer emerges

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen got into a hilarious tiff with his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase during the first round of pit stops during the 2023 F1 Belgian GP on Sunday.

There weren't many challenges faced by the Red Bull driver during the race, as he cruised to victory with a margin of over 22 seconds from his teammate Sergio Perez. But when the Dutch driver was behind his teammate in the opening laps of the race, his race engineer Lambiase immediately came onto the radio as Perez headed into the pitstop.

Lambiase said:

“Don’t forget Max, use your head please."

Verstappen replied: “Are we both doing it or what?” only to be told: “You just follow my instruction, thank you.”

Not finished, the Dutchman said:

“I want to know if both cars do it.”

But Lambiase wasn’t having any of it, and told his driver:

“Max, please just follow my instruction and trust it. Thank you.”

Here's the video of the exchange:

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Max Verstappen reveals he wasn't serious during his radio messages with his race engineer

The two-time world champion later said he was only half serious when he made the call to his engineer that he wanted to pit again in the final stint to go for the fastest lap.

In his post-race press conference, Max Verstappen said:

"Probably 50-50 in the messages. I know that the team doesn't like to do another stop but I like to mention it so they might get a bit nervous. And then I like the response: ‘no, no, we're not doing that today’. It's fine. We know each other very well and we have a very good relationship."

He also spoke about the importance of having a strong equation with your race engineer.

"Yeah, I think it's very important, the relationship with your race engineer," Verstappen said. "I find it always a really important part of your performance, not only your race engineer but everyone very close around you, performance engineer, these kinds of things."

"And of course, over the years, you build up much more of a relationship, you know each other much better," he added. "So yeah, for sure, if he would be removed or whatever that's definitely not ideal at all."

It is almost a given that we will get to hear more off-the-cuff and honest banter between Max Verstappen and Gianpiero Lambiase after the summer break.