Max Verstappen was not in the most amicable of moods during the 2024 Hungarian GP. Nursing an underperforming RB20, the Dutchman was taken out of contention for the win because of the strategy handed to him. According to former F1 manager, Peter Windsor, the team should have apologised to the Dutchman for their mistakes rather than calling his frustrated outbursts ‘childish.’
Verstappen was struggling for pace in his upgraded RB20. On top of that, the Red Bull pit wall seemingly allowed Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc to undercut the #1 driver twice. This left him with a mountain to climb in terms of having a realistic shot even at a podium.
In his last stint, the reigning world champion rebuked his engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase for putting him on such a bad strategy. Verstappen was frustrated on the team radio trying to get the third-place back from Hamilton. He then lost his bearings into turn 1, locked up, and made contact with the #44 driver.
In the aftermath of the incident, the Red Bull star told his engineer that Hamilton had been moving under braking and it was in fact the Briton’s fault. To this, Lambiase shot back at Verstappen, calling his rant “childish” and that he should not get into a radio fight with other teams over a possible penalty.
Peter Windsor is cooking again
Max Verstappen has been carrying the team on his own for a while now. He’s responsible for the points and championships. Instead of criticizing him on the team radio, they should be grateful that he’s out there alone, battling 5 cars due to… pic.twitter.com/OPg3tZsM0d
— Marc | Formula 1 (@433_marc) July 22, 2024
Talking about the radio bust-up, Windsor said, “Childish? I mean who are they [Red Bull] talking to? I cannot believe that a Red Bull employee said that to Max Verstappen in the middle of the race. Red Bull should not have been speaking to Max Verstappen like that – they should have been apologizing.”
Windsor also felt that Lando Norris was let down by his own mistakes when it came to him conceding his second Grand Prix win to Oscar Piastri.
Peter Windsor feels Lando Norris should have ignored McLaren team orders
After a strange strategy call that allowed Norris to inherit the lead of the race from his teammate, the young Briton was constantly persuaded on the team radio to give the position back to the #81 driver.
Windsor believes that Norris should have just played deaf. When his engineer, Will Joseph came onto the radio, Norris should have either not responded or should have “simulated a cracking noise”.
Windsor also explained that Piastri did not snatch the lead from his teammate on the first lap by pure merit. Hurtling down the inside, it was Norris’ “team player” move to squeeze Max Verstappen that allowed the young Australian to take the lead in the first place.
