Max Verstappen admits to making one change that is not ‘easy’ at Red Bull after team radio outbursts

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Max Verstappen is known for his outbursts over team radio in Formula 1 when things are not going his way on track.

Verstappen landed himself in hot water recently at the Spanish Grand Prix when he appeared to instigate a collision with George Russell, after being told that he needed to give a position back when he passed off track.

The FIA Stewards handed him a 10-second time penalty for the incident, while Verstappen would later apologise to Russell over the incident.

It’s not the first time an outburst has led to a collision on track, with Verstappen’s infamous sweary team radio at last year’s Hungarian GP a hot topic, which led to the FIA introducing fines for swearing.

Discussing his team radio messages in an interview with The Athletic, Verstappen admitted that it had an impact on his Red Bull team and that making changes was difficult.

Max Verstappen admits to making changes that are not ‘easy’ after team radio outbursts

Team radio messages can often come across out of context due to the nature of the F1 broadcast, while drivers are also more frantic because of the speeds and pressure they are under.

Verstappen is not immune to this, but the Dutchman acknowledged that some of his messages have impacted team morale and required extra support.

“If I’m getting upset with things, and they [the team] hear me being upset with things, it also does something with them, because they’re like, ‘Oh, Max is angry, we cannot approach him,’ or they start to also be a bit tense,” Verstappen explained.

“And you have to try and be motivating, supporting, which is not always easy when you have been dominating as a team and then you’re dropping back a bit.”

Red Bull faces first weekend without Christian Horner at Belgian Grand Prix

One of the main talking points of the 2025 season so far has been the exit of Christian Horner, who Red Bull sacked after the British Grand Prix.

Horner has been at the team for 20 years and overseen their unprecedented success from being midfield stragglers to one of the big three teams on the grid.

Verstappen’s camp reportedly wanted Horner to relinquish some of his power within the team, after they felt Red Bull should adopt a similar organisation strategy as McLaren who are winning.

Horner also lost support of the Thai owners, which impacted his standing within the team as the Austrian side also wanted him out of the picture due to the mix of poor results and off-track issues.