En route to his fourth consecutive world title, Max Verstappen had many battles to fight, both on and off the track. On more than one occasion in the 2024 season, the #1 driver was embroiled in controversy with the FIA’s stewards.
His most recent coming together with the stewards was at the season finale in Abu Dhabi where a lap 1 contact with Oscar Piastri saw the Dutchman pick up a 10-second time penalty. Verstappen wasn’t pleased and candidly expressed his feelings towards the stewards on his team radio comms by calling them “stupid idiots”.
Former Ferrari driver, Jean Alesi took a dim view of this. In an exclusive interview with F1Maximaal.nl, the 1995 Canadian GP winner said, “You are sometimes so focused on what you do during the race, even with your engineer and the situation in the car, that sometimes you say very bad things for nothing.”
“And I’m sure you’re not happy with what you said sometimes. Max was sometimes… too much,” concluded the Frenchman.
“Verstappen’s driving style is Senna-esque, leaving the opponent with no choice: ‘Concede, or we’ll crash etc’.
“He did it again with Piastri, vindicating Russell’s complaints.” https://t.co/W3b1TihJvn
— Motor Sport magazine (@Motor_Sport) December 9, 2024
Alesi isn’t the only F1 veteran to take notice of Verstappen’s outbursts. Former McLaren and Jordan driver, Martin Brundle — who now commentates for Sky Sports F1 — was the first to call out the Red Bull driver on his tirade against the stewards in Abu Dhabi.
Brundle wasn’t happy with Verstappen’s attitude
Brundle had front-row seats to Verstappen and Piastri’s incident at the Abu Dhabi GP. While he and David Croft were in agreement that a 10-second time penalty for a collision is a rare occurrence in F1, the British former driver was not too happy about how Verstappen decided to lash out at the stewards on the radio.
Brundle said live on air while covering the Grand Prix, “You can’t say that about referees. That’s just not fair. They are applying the regulations. Don’t run into other people and you won’t get penalties.”
This time, however, the Dutchman did not get any punishment for his language, as he did not use any expletive words. At the Singapore GP, Verstappen was slapped with a community service penalty for using the word “f**k” during the pre-race press conference. He served it in Kigali, Rwanda, ahead of the FIA’s prize-giving gala.
