Verstappen's coded messages recall previous F1 crashgate controversies

F1

Crashgate: the third instalment? Max Verstappen knew what he was doing when he disobeyed team orders and said he had his "reasons" over team radio, writes Tony Dodgins. What will be the repercussions for Red Bull?

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Speculation has mounted around Perez's Monaco crash after Verstappen radio message

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Max Verstappen started the Brazilian GP weekend with some mildly disgruntled noises and ended it with some highly controversial proclamations.

After declaring he wasn’t a fan of F1’s three 2022 ‘Sprint’ weekends, the reigning world champion then finished his race by laying down the law to Red Bull over its team orders’ procedure – instantly sparking wild conspiracy theories.

Verstappen’s refusal to let team-mate Perez re-pass, after failing to get on terms with Fernando Alonso for fifth, was interesting. Yes, on the surface it looked petty and graceless after Checo’s efforts to hold Lewis back in Abu Dhabi last year, particularly. But, clearly, there had been a prior discussion.

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Verstappen made his stance clear to Red Bull

Red Bull

“I told you already last time you guys, don’t ask that again to me. Okay?” Max radioed. “Are we clear about that? I gave my reasons and I stand by it.”

Right there, Max kind of threw Red Bull under the bus. The counter-argument is that the team shot itself in the foot by asking him to do it, knowing there was history, if indeed that is the case.

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Did Monaco F1 crash cause Perez and Verstappen team order row?
F1

Did Monaco F1 crash cause Perez and Verstappen team order row?

Why would Max Verstappen hold on to a grudge over Sergio Perez's seemingly accidental F1 crash six months ago? Yet that is the most likely explanation for his refusal to obey orders and allow his team-mate through in Brazil

By Dominic Tobin

The Dutch media alleges that Perez has admitted to the team that he spun deliberately in Q3 at Monaco when he had a quicker time on the board than Verstappen but Max had every chance of beating it with his final run. Sergio, who had started the year well enough to even look like a potential title threat, started third, ahead of Max, and went on to win the race when the front row Ferraris were torpedoed by higgledy-piggledy strategy.

Max, by broadcasting that radio message, will have known it would all come out and that his team principal potentially had ‘Crashgate 3’ on his hands. Verstappen and Horner were still trending on Twitter 12 hours later.

Crashgate 1: Michael Schumacher at Monaco

For those of you relatively new to the sport, Crashgate 1 came when Michael Schumacher did a similar thing in qualifying at Monaco in 2006. After mucking up his final Q3 run, he contrived the most totally unbelievable ‘straight-on’ moment at the slow-speed Rascasse before trying to reverse out of the tyres and ‘stalling.’ Alonso was three tenths up on his final run at the time and Webber, who qualified his Williams third that day, was also on course to beat Schumacher’s time.

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Schumacher would ‘stall’ his car at Rascasse

Grand Prix Photo

The post-qualifying press conference started quietly enough, until French journalist Anne Giuntini and my British colleague Byron Young, got stuck in to Michael.

Giuntini’s question said that other drivers’ opinions were that he had crashed deliberately. Schumacher attempted to bat that away by claiming that Monaco is quite tricky, as Alonso and Webber looked daggers at him from either side.

Young weighed in with, “Fernando, do you think anything less of Michael today?”

“I have my opinion and I won’t tell it here…” Alonso responded, stoking that fire.

And then, “Michael, do you think you cheated today?”

There was silence for a while as Michael sat there with lips more tightly pursed than a cat’s posterior. Finally, he offered, “I don’t know why you ask such a bad question. I think it is pretty tough, I have to say.

“If you were to drive around here, at Monaco, you would probably not ask this question.”

You could see Webber sat there thinking, “Rascasse is not that difficult, mate…”

“Would you be surprised to hear that Renault has gone to the stewards?” Young followed up.

Ferrari F1 driver Michael Schumacher at the 2006 Monaco GP

Schumacher purse lips under pressure

Grand Prix Photo

“I don’t care what other people, teams, do. I know Flavio well enough…” Schumacher retorted. Ouch. This last remark a reference to his former Benetton team boss, Flavio Briatore.

To be honest, the ‘crash’ was obviously deliberate to all but the most naïve of observers. I remember joking to the late Nigel Stepney, Ferrari’s chief mechanic at the time, that it would have been much more believable if he’d scraped it down the barrier in the tunnel, jettisoning bits of bodywork in all directions.

“Just glad he didn’t, we’d have been up all night…” he laughed. The stewards’ deliberations rumbled on for hours longer than they needed to before Schumacher was put to the back of the grid for the grand prix.

The 1982 world champion, Keke Rosberg was certainly not impressed with Schumacher. “It was the cheapest, dirtiest thing I’ve ever seen in F1,” he said. “He should leave F1 and go home.”

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You had to have a giggle eight years on when, at Monaco again, Nico Rosberg went straight on at Mirabeau on his final Q3 run, bringing out a yellow flag and preventing Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton from beating his pole position. Keke, presumably, went in search of the nearest sand-hill to bury himself in… Nico’s incident, however, never really escalated to true crashgate status. He got the benefit of any doubt, kept his pole and won the race. Probably as much down to his clean reputation as anything. Nico, surely, wouldn’t do that!?

Truth told, such things were hardly new. The late Charlie Whiting himself, the ultimate poacher turned gamekeeper, acknowledged that you always needed to get a quick lap in early at Monaco, because someone else would, then they’d pit and overfill the oil tank…

Crashgate 2: Nelson Piquet Jr at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix

Crashgate 2, Nelson Piquet Jr’s at Singapore in 2008 became a huge scandal. Schumacher was perhaps not wrong about Briatore and this was a Flavio-orchestrated attempt – successful as it turned out – to have the race neutralised after Fernando Alonso had made an unfeasibly early stop. Fernando, of course, went on to win. The background story though, was that Renault had threatened to pull out if the team didn’t win a race in ’08, and this was the way they did it. If you’ve got hundreds of employees all with kids and mortgages, perhaps you could argue that it all added up to the most constructive use of Nelson Jr! But then, irony of irony, they won the very next race, in Japan, on merit…

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Piquet revealed Singapore plan after being fired from Renault

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The problem was that Briatore was guilty of two not-so-bright political misadventures. The first being to dramatically hack-off FIA President Max Mosley, the second being to fire Piquet Jr a year later! When Nelson blabbed it was manna for Max and both Briatore and his technical chief Pat Symonds found themselves drummed out of the sport for five years. And Renault was publicly slated and gone by the end of the following year anyway.

Christian Horner was around for all of those moments and you can only imagine what he was thinking as the little public spat was played out over the radio. ‘Max, for Lord’s sake, STFU,’ was probably right up there…

It wasn’t long before Tweets with videos highlighting Checo’s throttle inputs and engine note out of Portier were all over the internet as poor Christian tried to focus attention on Red Bull’s relative lack of pace in Brazil. You’d have to hope that Checo, like Nico, is given the benefit of the doubt and that this doesn’t all get silly.