{"id":185192,"date":"2025-06-15T01:55:21","date_gmt":"2025-06-15T01:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/185192\/"},"modified":"2025-06-15T01:55:21","modified_gmt":"2025-06-15T01:55:21","slug":"after-max-verstappens-spain-rage-how-do-drivers-keep-calm-in-cockpit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/185192\/","title":{"rendered":"After Max Verstappen\u2019s Spain rage, how do drivers keep calm in cockpit?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Formula 1 cockpit is a uniquely testing place. Temperatures can reach up to 60C, it is tight and cramped, with your race engineer providing a near-constant stream of information and competitors and circuit walls only centimetres away.<\/p>\n

In Barcelona, Max Verstappen\u2019s temper got the better of him in the closing laps, a series of bad luck and strategy choices shortening his fuse before a misjudged collision with George Russell<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A flashpoint like that is relatively rare in the sport \u2014 most other crashes involve genuine attempts to complete an overtake or make a corner \u2014 and a considerable amount of time and effort is spent lowering the risks of a driver losing their temper at the wheel.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll drivers drive a bit closer to the red mist than they\u2019d like to let on,\u201d Tom Stallard, Oscar Piastri\u2019s race engineer<\/a>, explained, describing the need to intimately understand your driver and their feelings. \u201cKnowing when the driver is getting closer to that edge and needs to be brought back from it is one of the skills for a good race engineer.\u201d<\/p>\n

A race engineer is (almost always) the only team member able to communicate with the driver during the race, and their bond is crucial, both in an on-track sporting performance sense and in intuitively knowing how they will react to setbacks and challenges. Often they will tell their drivers to stop communicating on the radio, and save it for when they return to the pits, if they can sense they are particularly frustrated.<\/p>\n

On the present grid, Verstappen, 27, is known to have the underlying weakness of having a short temper \u2014 but so too is his team-mate, Yuki Tsunoda. It has been an area the 25-year-old has specifically focused on since being promoted to the Red Bull senior team from Racing Bulls, and is understood to have been part of the reason he did not get the opportunity sooner.<\/p>\n

\"Yuki<\/p>\n

Tsunoda has worked on staying calmer since moving across to Red Bull<\/p>\n

RUDY CAREZZEVOLI\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

Tsunoda changed management after last season ended and on his first day Diego Menchaca, his new representative, immediately went to the office of Helmut Marko, the Red Bull adviser, to build a relationship. He has since been much calmer on the radio \u2014 and generally in communication with the team \u2014 despite his performance struggles. It is an area where the team around you off the track can have a noticeable impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess part of being a good driver or a good athlete is dealing with the bad situations in the best way possible,\u201d Lando Norris, the McLaren driver, explained. \u201cIt\u2019s difficult, when you\u2019re competitive and all you want to do is win, get on the podium\u2026 when you see that getting away from you it hurts.<\/p>\n

\u201cHalf of it is dealing with the situation when you\u2019re in it, and half is making sure you\u2019re prepared to deal with that situation before it even happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isack Hadjar<\/a>, the hot-headed rookie who has impressed for Racing Bulls this season, has been significantly calmer on the radio than he was in Formula 2, where he grew a reputation for his outbursts and expletives.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve definitely made progress with my thumb,\u201d he joked this week. \u201cI\u2019m still shouting and insulting, but I just don\u2019t press the radio button, so no one knows. I still have the same character, it\u2019s not something you can erase.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Isack<\/p>\n

The Racing Bulls driver Hadjar simply turns off his radio when he needs to vent<\/p>\n

SHAWN THEW\/EPA<\/p>\n

Earlier this season he pointed out that in F2 you are paying for your seat and any mistakes the team make have a direct impact on your hopes and dreams of reaching F1. There is more allowance for frustration and anger at the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere, it\u2019s completely different,\u201d Hadjar said. \u201cYou get paid to drive. It\u2019s the coolest job on earth, you don\u2019t shout at people. It\u2019s not possible. If I want to shout, I shout in my helmet. That\u2019s what I do. I don\u2019t press the radio button to say nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the all-time greats such as Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna had similar incidents to Verstappen\u2019s in Barcelona, although not while competing for fourth in a largely inconsequential race.<\/p>\n

Others have not \u2014 Lewis Hamilton, for example, acted with maturity and class despite the events which led to Verstappen winning his first world title in Abu Dhabi, denying the British driver his eighth in the process.<\/p>\n

The ultra-competitive nature of elite athletes means they naturally hate losing and the physical strain and heat which they are exposed to can contribute to a shortness of temper and irritability.<\/p>\n

A new cooling vest this season has been particularly beneficial to those who are more susceptible to the heat, like George Russell, who, having been one of the first to try it, felt any slight weight disadvantage that it brought was worth it for the mental clarity and performance benefit it provided.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere the Las Vegas GP will remain on the calendar for 2026 and 2027 after a two-year extension was agreed. This season the race will start two hours earlier, at 8pm, after feedback from members of the paddock and the wider fanbase that it was too late the previous years.<\/p>\n

Formula 1 \u2014 which doubles as a promoter for the Vegas Grand Prix \u2014 is also working to lower ticket prices to make the event more accessible to the average fan, having initially pitched it towards the premium consumer. The weekend, which before the arrival of F1 was one of the quietest of the year in Vegas, now rivals the much more established Super Bowl in terms of financial reward for hotels and casinos in the area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Formula 1 cockpit is a uniquely testing place. Temperatures can reach up to 60C, it is tight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-185192","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114684895228180000","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}