Max Verstappen's irate and abusive team radios to his race engineer defended by Jenson Button

Jenson Button has come out in support of Max Verstappen after the Red Bull driver's irate and abusive team radios to his race engineer at the 2023 F1 US GP. The driver was under intense pressure as he was being chased down by Lewis Hamilton. At the same time, the driver was facing issues with the brakes on his car.

The gap continued to decrease at the end of the race and so did Max Verstappen's patience with his race engineer. He ranted on the team radio asking his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase multiple times not to talk to him during the braking zones. This caught the eye of many after the race as they felt Verstappen was being too rude to his race engineer.

Former McLaren driver Jenson Button had a somewhat contrarian view on this as he pointed out that Max Verstappen had told his race engineer not to talk to him in the braking zones. The 2009 F1 World Champion told Sky F1:

“You just hate it as a driver being talked to in the braking zone. So you’ve got to think that the braking zone in an F1 car is so short. So, once you’re in the braking zone, you’re at the braking zone. So it’s a shock when somebody talks to you on the radio.”

Danica Patrick also echoed Button's sentiments as she said:

"It’s not hard for them to look at where the straights are, and speak on them."

Button replied:

“They’re long enough, aren’t they? He really should be doing it on the straights. I don’t blame Max at all.”

Max Verstappen backed by IndyNXT racer as well

IndyNXT racer Jamie Chadwick felt something similar about the whole situation. Admitting that Max Verstappen can be a bit harsh on his race engineer when it comes to these situations, she still felt that the argument was more in favor of the driver than the engineer. She said:

“I find, that when someone speaks to you, you always assume there’s a problem. So it really throws you off basically, because you’re usually used to being spoken to in the same places. Max is hard on GP, I think we’ve seen that between them the whole year but I think, in this instance, Max was probably right to bite back.”

The dynamics between the race engineer and the driver can get a bit heated from time to time but the question remains whether the two can manage things professionally. For now, it does appear that they can and that is the most important bit.