Max Verstappen has responded extensively for the first time to the announced departure of his regular race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase. The Dutchman had known for some time about the move of his ‘friend for life’ at the pit wall, and reveals how Lambiase actually did not want to go to McLaren without Verstappen’s blessing: ‘I told him: ‘You’d be stupid if you didn’t do it’.’
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Max Verstappen once swapped the circuit for the theater, for Viaplay’s Een Avond met Max Verstappen in the heart of Amsterdam. In an evening that covered his favorite karaoke song, his little daughter and even the Toppers, the four-time world champion also briefly reflected on the recently announced departure of Gianpiero Lambiase. Of course, the news did not come as a surprise to the Dutchman.
“I naturally have a very good relationship with GP (Lambiase, ed.)”, Verstappen says. “He also told me what the offer from McLaren was. I told him: ‘You’d be stupid if you didn’t do it’. We have already achieved everything, won the world title multiple times. And who knows, in the future, we might work together outside Formula 1 again. We are friends for life. We are still young. It was an incredible offer, and it provides security for his family. You have to take that into account as well. So I told him he had to do it one hundred percent. And he wanted to hear that.”
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‘I wish him well’
That Verstappen then has to build something up again with a new race engineer does not bother him. “I wish him well (Lambiase, ed.)”, he explains. “And then you’re not so downcast. In terms of racing, you don’t find it so bad, because we have achieved so much. I also can’t say to him: ‘No, I want to keep you here’. Everyone has their own dreams and goals.”
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Een avond met Max Verstappen is available from Friday 8:00 PM on Viaplay.
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