Max Verstappen was once again forced to address his Barcelona meltdown when he spoke to the media ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix. It was one of the most controversial moments of his F1 career to date.
The details are widely known by now – Verstappen was fighting for fourth place at the end of the race, having been overtaken by Charles Leclerc. George Russell tried to pass him at turn one, and the Red Bull superstar took the run-off in his defence.
It was a marginal call, but Red Bull advised him to give up the place to avoid a penalty. Verstappen was furious, and it later turned out that the stewards viewed it as a racing incident.
The reigning world champion slowed down as if he was about to let Russell through, then accelerated again. This led to contact, a 10-second penalty and three penalty points.
One more point in the next two events, and Verstappen faces a race ban.
Max Verstappen felt Ted Kravitz singled out Red Bull team member unfairly
According to Ted Kravitz, Verstappen wasn’t ‘particularly receptive’ to questions about his driving style. As such, the Sky Sports journalist asked him about Red Bull’s execution instead.
Strategist Stephen Knowles has taken over as the team’s de facto regulations expert following the departure of Jonathan Wheatley. And Kravitz asked Verstappen whether there would be a change in Knowles’ approach.
The Dutchman, though, felt this amounted to unfairly singling out a member of his team. Kravitz unsuccessfully tried to clarify, but he had to end the interview.
“He wasn’t in a particularly receptive mood about [the George Russell incident], so I thought I’d go with a question about the team mistake that led to that message in error to give the place back to Russell,” Kravitz explained on his ‘Podbook’.
“I asked him a question that I thought was going to be on his side and understanding his annoyance that set that whole fateful minute and a half off in the first place.
“I said to him, ‘What are you going to be doing to improve the dialogue with your rules man – a guy called Stephen Knowles, who’s taken over from Jonathan Wheatley – to make sure that doesn’t happen again?’.
“Max either misunderstood it by accident, or took a rather over-negative interpretation of what I was saying. He said, ‘I don’t think it’s fair for you to single somebody out. I would never single somebody out for criticism in the team’.
“What was I meant to do? Was I meant to say an ‘unnamed team representative that deals with the rules’? I said ‘I’m just not here to say it was Stephen Knowles wasn’t it, let’s blame him’.”
“And then he just wouldn’t accept it. He just said, ‘Well, I think it’s not nice of you to do that’, at which point we ended the interview.”
Max Verstappen’s camp do privately have an issue with Red Bull director
Red Bull are ‘convinced’ that Verstappen won’t be banned despite the jeopardy in Canada and Austria. He said on Thursday that he won’t be any less aggressive.
Verstappen enters the event 49 points behind championship leader Oscar Piastri. He’s publicly declared that he’s not a title contender, but he must know that a suspension could be fatal to any lingering ambitions.
The 27-year-old has done a commendable job to stay in contention given Red Bull’s evident performance deficit to McLaren. His task has been complicated by operational failings, like those seen in Spain, and upgrades that haven’t delivered the desired result.
Verstappen’s camp weren’t impressed by Pierre Wache, the technical director, when he suggested that they could learn from sister team Racing Bulls. But he’s kept most of his frustrations private, as would be expected from a driver of his stature.
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