F1 – Singapore GP – Verstappen trapped by Red Bull and furious: “It’s never acceptable”

Red Bull Racing was, until then, the model team cited as an example by the whole pitlane. A well-oiled, unflappable organization capable of leading its champion to victory under all possible conditions, through all scenarios, especially the most adverse. And we didn’t think she could fall from above, on a mistake that was ultimately quite banal.

Embarking on a series of laps to give himself a chance to properly warm up his tires and find a clear lap in the third part of qualifying at the Marina Bay circuit, Max Verstappen had two chances to stun the field at the last moment to conquer the 17th pole position of the season. Author of the best partials in sectors 1 and 2, he was each time stopped in his tracks by his engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, his accomplice since his arrival at Red Bull in 2016, and in whom he has blind confidence.

The first time, it was a traffic-related circumstance. “We were getting closer and closer to Gasly, that’s why we decided to abandon the tour”justified sports adviser Helmut Marko, to ORF, the Austrian channel.

The second, we immediately understood that it was something else, that the petrol was missing in the RB18 n°1 to return to the garage with the regulation liter to satisfy the technical control of the marshals of the International Federation of Automobiles. It being understood that stopping him on the track in the slowdown lap to save the day would have been impossible to justify, and necessarily sanctioned by the FIA ​​stewards.

Max Verstappen had to go up in a snap from the eighth to the first row on the timing screens. But in the last corner, he veered towards the pitlane, surprised and quite angry. “Go back to the box!”urged his engineer, head of RB18 n°1 and responsible for track operations. “What the fuck is this? What are you guys telling me? I don’t get it, what is it?”replied the Dutchman. “We’ll explain later”replied Lambiase.

The motive was obvious, impossible to hide, and Max Verstappen laid it out when he returned to the paddock, while admitting he had found something odd in the previous lap. “Yeah, I really felt the ride before too, but then they told me to give up, he told Sky Sport, the broadcaster of the world championship in England. But then, in the last round, they told me to box. Then I realized what I thought was going to happen, that we were running out of gas.”

“It’s incredibly frustrating and shouldn’t happen, and even when you don’t have enough fuel, or if you don’t plan to do that sixth lap, then you at least understand as the session progresses. that we’re not going to make it, he developed. We should have seen it sooner. I know it’s a collective effort, that I can make mistakes, that the team can make mistakes, but that’s never acceptable. It shouldn’t happen.”

And after this surprising failure, you shouldn’t talk to him about the title or anything else. “I’m not really in the mood to talk about the race”he cut, promising just to do the maximum.