Last weekend, Max Verstappen took his 30th victory in Formula 1 thanks to a good strategy with the tires that allowed him to pass Lewis Hamilton on the last restart after the safety car caused by Valtteri Bottas. However, the trigger for that situation was the Virtual Safety Car period generated by the driver of Red Bull’s sister team, Yuki Tsunoda, who stopped twice in the middle of the track due to problems with his wheels.
The Japanese stopped when he detected a possible error in his team’s stop, but from the AlphaTauri wall they told him that everything was correct. The Japanese, at that time, had already removed his belts, so he had to return to the pitlane for the mechanics to fasten them, and they took the opportunity to change the compounds again.
On the way out, Tsunoda repeated again that there was something strange about his car, so he parked in one of the loopholes causing the virtual safety car to be deployed, allowing Verstappen to make an extra stop. The Dutchman eventually won at Zandvoort with that help, sparking conspiracies over a possible Red Bull strategy with his minor team.
In the press conference prior to the Italian Grand Prix, the reigning world champion wanted to speak on the subject to deny any type of theory, and agreed with his team’s decision to go out and support his director of strategy, Hannah Schmitz , for the accusations that appeared on social networks.
“I am glad that they have put out a statement, as we have done with many other things,” Verstappen said. “What has happened is obviously not right, at the end of the day those things shouldn’t happen.”
“The fact that you think so is crazy. Why do you think something like this happens in this sport? And for team members to be hated too is going too far for me,” the Dutchman told Motorsport.com. “I can’t get it into my head that someone would do something like that.”
“This is what you get when you leave everything open on social networks. Anyone can say what they want, in my opinion, we have to focus much more on the fight against hate,” said the World Cup leader. “Companies do something, but not enough, people just continue with another account, and even if they block your IP address, those individuals will still find a way.”
“So there has to be another solution,” he continued. “Social media is getting bigger and bigger and that’s great, but it also has downsides. It doesn’t matter what team it is, it’s just ridiculous.”
Max Verstappen showed his support for the members of his team, with which he is going for the record of thirteen victories in a single season held by Sebastian Vettel and Michael Schumacher, and he does not forget what happened: “On the other hand, of course We know what we’re doing, and that’s the most important thing. We’re happy we won at Zandvoort, and it doesn’t matter what people say on social media, but it shouldn’t happen.”
“We have to emphasize it so that hopefully in a few years it doesn’t happen again,” the Dutchman said before defending his chief strategy officer. “Hannah [Schmitz] is a strong woman and she knows what she’s doing, she’s not here this weekend, but we don’t need to talk about it. In fact, we shouldn’t pay too much attention to it, because these people don’t deserve it.”
Do you want to read our news before anyone else and for free? Follow us here on our Telegram channel and you won’t miss a thing. All the information, at your fingertips!
