Max Verstappen has insisted he has not been banned from Red Bull for night-time sim racing during a Grand Prix weekend as the fallout from his behaviour in Hungary continues.
The three-time F1 world champion lost his cool in Budapest on Sunday, repeatedly insulting engineer Gianpiero Lambiase and calling the team’s race strategy “shit”, hours after staying up until 3am playing with his race simulation team. The Redline Team.
Respected F1 pundit Martin Brundle said the radio exchanges made him “uncomfortable” and when members of the media asked the Dutchman after the race about criticism of his team’s radio conduct, Verstappen replied “they can all go fuck themselves”.
Ahead of this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko said the team had agreed with Verstappen that he would not drive in race simulations during a grand prix weekend – but the Dutchman denied that was the case.
Verstappen said at Thursday’s media day: “We talked about it, I said, ‘You don’t have to worry, there are no other races coming up’. But no, it’s not that I have a ban.”
“I don’t need to tell them what to do in their free time on the weekend, and the same goes for me.”
“I ran until 3am. It’s not something new and, for me, it’s something very important in my life. There are no other sim races coming up anyway, so nobody has to worry about that.
“But it’s always when you don’t win the race that you blame: ‘You stayed up until 3 a.m.’ or ‘You’re a pound overweight.'”
“There are always things to settle that you can argue about when you don’t win a race, but for example in Imola I won the race – both of them.
“For me it’s not something new, I’ve been doing this since 2015, so for me it’s not something different in my preparation.
“I’ve won three world championships. I think I know pretty well what I can and can’t do.”
Verstappen, who is winless in three races, is set to receive a 10-place grid penalty for this weekend’s race at Spa-Francorchamps, making McLaren duo Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri favourites to confirm their Budapest one-two with another strong performance.
Norris trails Verstappen by 76 points in the world championship heading into this weekend, which is the final race before F1’s summer shutdown.