Max Verstappen and GianPiero relationship praised as ‘no pussyfooting’ claim made
Max Verstappen has had the voice of Gianpiero Lambiase in his ears pretty much since he started in F1.
The straightforward discussions between Max Verstappen and GianPiero Lambiase is a prime example of a driver/engineer relationship “done right”.
Rob Smedley, a long-time race engineer for Felipe Massa at Ferrari, has commended the straightforwardness of the relationship between Max Verstappen and GianPiero Lambiase.
Rob Smedley: Verstappen and Lambiase have got their relationship right
Lambiase has worked directly with Verstappen ever since the Dutch driver arrived at Red Bull in 2016 and, while he secured a promotion to become Red Bull’s head of race engineering, extended his contract with the team to remain as Verstappen’s race engineer for the foreseeable future.
Verstappen and Lambiase are well known for their matter-of-fact way of communicating over team radio, but both have acknowledged the older brother/younger brother dynamic that underlines their occasionally obstreperous communiqúes.
Labiase is not afraid to sharply retort or admonish his superstar driver, and it’s this straightforwardness that has earned the admiration of Smedley.
“I love GianPiero. He’s such a great guy,” the British engineer, now the owner of the Global Karting League championship and franchise which he founded.
“I’m constantly telling him his time’s up in Formula 1 now he’s had his world championships so stop being greedy and come and work for me! Might happen one day, might not, but you heard it here first!
“But I love GP, and he’s very much like an engineer how I was.
“I remember when I first started [at Jordan, 2001], and it was Gary Anderson who told me a term which I think is great. ‘You’ve got to be pissing in each other’s pockets, right?’ It doesn’t matter who you are. There’s no hierarchy here.
“It’s you two guys trying to get the best out of this thing. It’s a pressure cooker as well, right? So you’ve just got to have this completely open relationship. sometimes you’re going to get pissed off with him, he’s going to get pissed off with you.
“But, at the end of the day, it’s like any deep relationship, or true relationship – you can have those moments, and then, five minutes later, it’s all okay.
“That’s what it should be like between an engineer and a driver when they’ve got their relationship right.
“Between Max and GP, they’ve definitely got that relationship. GP tells him how it is, and Max will fire back.”
Smedley explained how drivers can become myopic when things aren’t going swimmingly during a race weekend or a championship, and said the ability of a race engineer to keep emotions in check is imperative for ensuring drivers remain grounded in their dealings with the team.
“Sometimes the drivers can get slightly sociopathic with their views on the team, right?” he said.
“These are guys who are staying up until midnight a lot of the nights, working for you and getting things right. You hear GP a couple of times, and I’ve definitely said it to my drivers, I think you need to go back in the garage and apologise to the guys, because how you’ve been behaving is not very adult and or you haven’t been a very nice person, put in polite terms.
“So get in there and apologise! GP has done that with Max, and I certainly did it in my time.
“The way Gianpiero conducts himself on the radio, and it’s probably just a reflection of their real, good, relationship. You’ve got a relationship that works. They both rely on each other fully, and they both trust each other fully.
“When you’ve got that you can talk to each other how you want, right? You don’t have to have ‘Control, check, 10, four’ and all of this nonsense, right? You know, ‘We are checking’. Well, f**king hurry up then, because I’m driving a car at 200 miles an hour!”
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Rob Smedley: Walking on eggshells brings you to the worst possible place
On the flipside of that, Smedley explained how he also believes there’s too much consideration of driver’s feelings from some race engineers.
The example offered to Smedley was of Lando Norris’ failing to immediately obey a request by his McLaren race engineer Will Joseph to move over for teammate Oscar Piastri following the Australian losing his lead to Norris during the 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix.
This led to Joseph pleading with Norris to move aside for Piastri, playing on his conscience by reminding the British driver about how he would need the team’s support for his championship bid.
Smedley declined to “talk specifically about McLaren”, citing his friendship with team boss Andrea Stella, but hinted at his feelings on how the situation was handled.
“I would say that, in general, I think in Formula 1, there’s too much pussy-footing around, like the way the radio messages go to the driver,” he said.
“I don’t watch every single race, but the races I watch, I’m like ‘F**king grow a pair, man!’ Just tell him what you need to tell him, right?
“It’s like you give any narcissistic sociopath an inch, and they’ll take a yard, right? So, don’t give them that inch to start with, right?
“Don’t give them this fact that ‘I’ve got some kind of inferiority complex here, and I’m going to tell you something, and maybe you’ll do it’.”
Smedley animatedly said that it’s imperative the driver is aware of their obligations as a fellow employee of the team.
“No, mate, we’re at work, right? I’m going to tell you something, you do it,” he said.
“When my boss tells me something, I do it. That’s the way the world works. If we don’t do that – as long as we’re not working for narcissists and sociopaths and they’re telling us to do the wrong things – in a high-pressure environment like this, the whole thing’s going to get spun out. It’s going to get spun off its axis.
“So let’s just get down these ground rules, the rules of engagement, how we talk to each other.
“There’s a lot of this stuff, like, ‘Should I make a decision? Should I ask this driver to move over or that driver to move over? Will his feelings be hurt?’
“Look, you’re only ever going to get one driver at the end of the race who’s happy, right?
“You can’t please all of the people all of the time, so just fucking grow a pair and get on and make the decisions that you need to make. I think that’s true in Formula 1, and it’s true in life, right? Walking on eggshells and you don’t make a decision, you just end up in the worst possible place.
“Indecision is still a decision, but it’s the wrong decision.”
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