UK Edition
Max Verstappen threatens to 'headbutt someone' after questions on crash record
Max Verstappen lost all composure Thursday after being asked to explain why he had crashed on six race weekends in succession.
“I’m getting really tired of all the questions,” said the 20-year-old, who has fewer than half the points of Red Bull team-mate Daniel Ricciardo ahead of Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix. “If I get any more I might headbutt someone.”
The remark was not uttered in jest. Verstappen looked thunderous when reminded of his recent haplessness, which has cost his team crucial points in this year’s battle for the constructors’ title.
Verstappen took the suggestion that he should try a “modified approach”, to use team principle Christian Horner’s words, as a personal affront. “I’m tired of all the comments that I should change,” he said. “I will never do that, because it brought me to where I am right now.” Asked what he needed to do in Montreal to avert a repeat, where the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve’s infamous ‘Wall of Champions’ awaits the unwary, he replied: “Not hit the wall. It’s a simple as that. I guess it’s just a little bit more finesse. Sometimes s--- happens.”
The Dutchman’s litany of misjudgments means that with less than a third of the season gone, he already trails championship leader Lewis Hamiton by 75 points. Canada offers him scant hope of a reprieve, with this track’s long straights likely to leave Red Bull, whose cars are best in high-downforce conditions, struggling behind Mercedes and Ferrari.
Accepting that the task would be daunting without a major performance boost from engine suppliers Renault, he said: “It’s very hard. You could see in Monaco that we have a great car and it’s very unfortunate that we don’t have the top speed to compete all the time.”
Hamilton also weighed in on the debate over equal pay that has erupted after the latest Forbes list of the world’s 100 highest-earning athletes – on which he came 12th – did not include a single woman. “Serena Williams is in the top three of the greatest athletes of all time, above a lot of the people on that list, so it is a big question,” he said. “I don’t understand. It just shows you we are still in the Stone Age.”