Photo Credit: Red Bull Content Pool
Despite the excellent first half of the season, Red Bull doesn’t seem to want to stop. Indeed, the team’s goal is to win all the races in 2023, given the ease with which Max Verstappen manages to dominate the GPs. The only difficulties, at least in Belgium, were those represented by the bickering over the radio between him and his track engineer Gianpiero Lambiase: episodes commented by Christian Horner at the end of the race.
The first half of the season could not have ended better for Red Bull. In fact, after a dominant 2022, with both titles won, the British-Austrian team showed everyone how hungry it is, producing the RB19 for 2023, an even better car than the 2022 model and capable of dominating everywhere. In the first twelve races so far, the Milton Keynes team has achieved twelve triumphs.
The first half of the season confirms the great work of the team, capable of producing a perfect car (even with the handicap of limited hours in the wind tunnel, due to the violation of the budget cap). A start that, in addition to allowing Verstappen to secure his third world championship, shows a perfect team in every component.
The only potential difficulties at Spa were the squabbles over the radio between him and his track engineer, Giampiero Lambiase, who repeatedly disagreed on what to do on the track in the various sessions.
The first “discount” occurred during qualifying, followed by heated exchanges in the race (when Lambiase asked Max to “use his head” in the final stint when Max “ripped” the soft tyres). Clashes then continued in a joking way, when the two-time world champion asked the garage to be able to make an extra pit stop to “train the boys”, which was followed by a reply of no from his engineer.
Christian Horner has praised Lambiase for his character, capable of standing firm against Max Verstappen, comparing the Italian-born race engineer to the actor Jason Statham.
“I think to race engineer Max Verstappen you’ve got to have strength of character, because he is one tough customer.
“Many race engineers would crumble under that pressure and GP has got the strength of character to deal with that.
“GP is our Jason Statham equivalent, I guess, they certainly look alike…! He deals with him firmly but fairly and there’s a great respect between the two of them.
“The only problem is that conversation between the two of them, 200 million people are listening to. But there’s a great bond and a great trust between the two. There’s no counselling required.”
When Horner was quizzed on whether Verstappen is driving within the limits more than the radio messages suggest, the British team principal agreed that is the case sometimes.
Lambiase confirmed to Horner that the Dutch driver was not pushing as hard as radio messages suggested at Spa.
“I think there’s sometimes an element of that. But we have to remember the engineers and the performance engineers, they’re living and breathing all the data they have in front of them.
“They can see, and they know their driver’s driving style, they know what they’re taking out of the car and so on.
“And I was asking GP: ‘I know what he’s doing, he’s trying to build up a gap for a pitstop’ and GP said: ‘I think he’s taking it pretty easy, all the metrics are massively under control.’
“So, it’s having that trust and bond that’s so important, which is what those two guys have. I mean, sometimes it gets a bit sparky between the two of them. But it’ll calm down very quickly.”
