Gianpiero Lambiase shares ‘harsh lessons’ Max Verstappen has learned at Red Bull

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Gianpiero Lambiase admits Max Verstappen has had to iron out problems with his driving during his time at Red Bull.

Verstappen has now three world championships with the team and leads this year’s standings despite retiring from the Australian Grand Prix.

But Lambiase, who was speaking to BBC Sport, says it hasn’t all been smooth sailing for the Dutchman since he joined the team in 2016.

Verstappen joined the team at the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix when Red Bull opted to axe Daniil Kvyat.

Kvyat returned to junior team Toro Rosso, with the teenager called up to replace him in a direct swap.

Verstappen won that race on debut to become the youngest victor in F1 history, but he wouldn’t taste victory again until the latter part of the 2017 campaign in Malaysia and Mexico.

That year, he finished behind teammate Daniel Ricciardo in the drivers’ standings, with just four podiums to the Australian’s nine.

While he comfortably beat Ricciardo the following year, he also picked up seven penalty points, the joint-highest in the field.

Red Bull remained distant challengers to the dominant Mercedes team in 2019 and 2020 before Verstappen’s legendary duel with Lewis Hamilton in 2021.

This year, the 26-year-old is looking to become just the fifth driver in F1 history to win four straight titles.

Michael Schumacher (2000-04), Juan Manuel Fangio (1954-57), Sebastian Vettel (2010-13) and Hamilton (2017-20) are the only others to achieve that feat.

Gianpiero Lambiase shares what Red Bull worked on with Max Verstappen

Verstappen has now won 56 Grands Prix with Red Bull, which is the third-most with a single team.

Hamilton has won 82 at Mercedes, while Schumacher took 72 victories with Ferrari.

However, Lambiase insists the team have had to work to build him into the driver he is today.

In his earlier years, they honed his ‘racecraft’ and his ‘consistency’, as well as trying to limit his number of accidents.

“Max learned some really harsh lessons in the two or three years before 2021,” he said.

“His racecraft really was something that we focused on, making sure we were just picking up points when it wasn’t possible to win a race.

“We were concentrating on building his consistency, needing to be finishing every race, maybe not putting himself in a situation where he can end up in a 50/50 accident with another driver.”

Will Max Verstappen leave Red Bull?

For all the success Verstappen has enjoyed at Red Bull – his 2023 campaign was the most dominant in F1 history with 19 wins from 22 races – his future is uncertain.

It’s just emerged that he’s ‘increasingly likely’ to join rivals Mercedes for the 2025 season.

The Silver Arrows are currently struggling in fourth in the constructors’ championship, but Verstappen is aware that the 2026 regulation changes could reset the running order.

Mercedes stole an advantage when we last saw an overhaul of the engine rules, winning eight constructors’ titles in a row.

Verstappen is also the subject of interest from Lawrence Stroll at Aston Martin, who views him as a feasible target.

With all this going on, Red Bull have taken steps to identify some possible replacements.

Reports have mentioned Carlos Sainz, Alex Albon and Oscar Piastri as candidates for Christian Horner and co.