Calum Nicholas recalls hilarious Silverstone hot lap with Max Verstappen and GP

Max Verstappen’s former Red Bull ally Calum Nicholas recalled taking Verstappen and Co. for a lap around Silverstone, where the pressure proved higher than expected.

Verstappen wanted Nicholas – his former senior engine technician – to get his foot down in his Audi RS6. Gianpiero Lambiase meanwhile – Verstappen’s race engineer – was getting rather twitchy on a cold pre-season day in Northamptonshire.

The ‘nerve-wracking’ Silverstone lap with Max Verstappen

Speaking in a video on his Instagram page, Nicholas told the story of how he volunteered to take Verstappen for a lap around Silverstone before he headed out in Red Bull’s car for the upcoming season.

Lambiase – affectionately known as ‘GP’ – came up with the idea, and Nicholas raised his hand for what was meant to be some simple reconnaissance laps.

“It’s a couple of years ago, pre-season, and we’re doing our normal filming day,” Nicholas began. “Every year, all the teams, before you go to pre-season testing, they pretty much all use one of their allocated filming days, to just give the car a bit of a shakedown before you get to Bahrain.

“So as usual, we’re at Silverstone. We’re getting ready to send the car out for its first laps of the season. With of course, Max Verstappen behind the wheel.

“It was cold, wet, early morning. So GP, being as sensible as he is, said that he wanted someone to take him [Max] around the circuit to do some reconnaissance laps. I immediately went: ‘Me!’

“Now, I’ve got an old Audi 2013 RS6, I love it, getting on a bit, got 100,000 miles on the clock. This would be the first time that I got to take it out on a circuit. So I was pretty excited about it.”

Only, the excitement waned a little as the task began to take shape.

“It was more nerve-wracking than I thought it would be,” Nicholas continued. “The first problem that I had was the car said it only had 30 miles of fuel left. That 30 miles becomes zero very, very quickly!

“So Max jumps in the passenger seat. GP’s just sat behind me. Tom Hart [Verstappen’s performance engineer] is there, and we’re ready to go.

“When I took on this offer, I didn’t really think that it would be as much pressure as it was. I was kind of stuck in the middle. I didn’t want to drive too fast, but I didn’t want to drive too slowly either.

“Once we were out on the track, this became even more of a problem, because while I’ve got Max going, ‘Yeah, go, go, go, go’, I’ve got GP in the back going, ‘That’s enough, Calum! You don’t need to go any faster.’

“But Max did make me laugh at one point. Because as we’re approaching Maggotts and Becketts, bear in mind I’m already doing a fair lick, he [Max] just says to me, ‘It’s flat through here.'”

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Nicholas told Max, ‘mate, it is not, and I ain’t got the balls for that.’

He continued: “Anyway, we all made it round the lap safely. Which is good, because I would not have wanted to explain to health and safety why a pretty key member of the team was injured before the season starts!”

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