Red Bull addresses 'It's Childish' Max Verstappen team radio from his race engineer

Red Bull's Christian Horner has addressed the 'It's Childish' comments from Gianpiero Lambiase to Max Verstappen during the Hungarian GP and clarified that the 'childish' reference was not for the driver but for others.

As has become a common practice these days, whenever a driver makes contact with another or is part of an incident, he tends to put his case forward on the team radio in case the stewards are listening.

During the Hungarian GP, Verstappen was involved in an incident with Lewis Hamilton. The Red Bull driver was on fresh tyres, and while lapping another car, he tried a lunge down the inside at turn 1. The move saw Verstappen lock up his brakes and, as a result, made contact with the Mercedes driver.

In reference to the contact made with Hamilton, Max Verstappen came on the radio and said that the Mercedes driver had moved under braking. In what was a surprise snapback from his race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase said that he would not be involved in this conversation on the team radio, as it was childish to do that. He said:

"I’m not even going to get into a radio fight with the other teams, Max. We’ll let the stewards do their thing. It’s childish on the radio. Childish.”

When questioned about the comments, Red Bull boss Christian Horner told the media, including Sportskeeda, that the race engineer's comment didn't call Max Verstappen childish; it was for others. He said:

“GP, I think at that point actually wasn’t referring to Max, I think he’s referring to others on the radio complaining about penalties.

"So, I don’t think GP’s reference at that point was in reference to Max. Others are obviously goading for penalties, because obviously, the stewards are listening to the radio as well."

He added:

“They’ve been together for eight years, and there are things that we could have done better in the race today, but it’s something that we’ll talk about as a team.”

---

Max Verstappen was frustrated at the time: Christian Horner

Talking to the media about Max Verstappen's radio that sounded increasingly angry as the race went on, Christian Horner said that the driver was frustrated with how the race was unfolding, and that contributed to the incident. He said:

"Max was frustrated. We can understand. He has a very direct line of communication with his engineer, so that’s something that will be discussed between the two of them.

"I think everybody sees that we need to find more performance. Everybody’s working hard to do that, so we’ll have whatever discussions behind closed doors.”

Red Bull saw its lead in the championship shrink to 51 points against McLaren in Hungary, while Max Verstappen also saw his championship lead decrease to 76 points after the Hungarian GP.