Max Verstappen may have drawn a line under his Qatar tiff with George Russell but it seems the uncle of his soon-to-be-first-born child, Nelson Piquet Jr., isn’t quite so ready to let it go.

Verstappen and Russell provided the late-season antagonism in the F1 2024 championship when they verbally clashed after qualifying at the Qatar Grand Prix.

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Verstappen was denied pole position through a post-qualifying penalty imposed by the stewards for driving unnecessarily slowly and blasted Russell for trying to “screw” him over with the stewards. Russell then claimed Verstappen threatened to “put me on my f***ing head in the wall”, and accused the Dutchman of being a bully.

And on it went.

The two drew a line under the tiff at the F1 75 event where Russell said he had “no concerns about him [Verstappen] or his driving or anything” while Verstappen made it clear to the media including PlanetF1.com that he had “no intention to continue any kind of beef in February”.

Subject closed. At least it is for Verstappen and Russell, but not so much for Piquet Jr.

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The former Renault F1 driver recently spoke with Christian Fittipaldi, also a former F1 driver, on the Pelas Pistas podcast where the two discussed the FIA’s ban on drivers swearing.

FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem wants a complete ban on foul language, with misconduct and causing ‘moral injury’ to motorsport’s governing body also in the mix, and if any driver breaks the rules they’ll be hit with hefty fines, suspensions and could even lose World Championship points.

“It’s not right,” said Piquet Jr. “This new generation of F1 drivers, they almost have to act during the interviews.

“When someone asks, ‘what did you think of the incident?’ Then half of the answers look like this: ‘no, I’m very happy to be here, my favourite country, this and that. Oh, the incident? No, we’re going to fix that, everything’s fine’.

“You don’t really hear the person say what they feel or think. I think the only place where that still happens is in NASCAR.”

The former Renault driver, who’s sister Kelly is Verstappen’s partner, believes Formula 1 needs personality from the drivers.

“That’s necessary, you need that. The fans really need to know who the people are. It doesn’t help to polish a person to be perfect and beautiful to everyone.

“James Hunt was James Hunt because of his character. On and off the track. My father also had a bit of a different character on and off the track.

“The only one who sometimes goes off the beaten track is Max. He says what he thinks. Alonso sometimes too..”

Fittipaldi chipped in: “They are becoming polished robots.”

Piquet Jr. then couldn’t resist having a dig at Russell, saying: “Well, he says things while he… He already plans everything.

“He comes from a generation that is already like this, plus he learned that from [Lewis] Hamilton. Everything he says is calculating. He thinks about everything.”

“He looks like a Playmobil doll,” Fittipaldi claimed. “You could also compare him to Thunderbirds.”

“Or Chicken Run, maybe?” quipped Piquet Jr.

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