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Red Bull driver Max Verstappen says he would rather stay silent than complain about his penalty at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix - Getty Images /Kym Illman
Max Verstappen’s opinion was not too difficult to decipher after the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, even if he had little to actually say. Losing out on victory in Jeddah after being given a five-second penalty for an incident with race-winner Oscar Piastri at turn one, Verstappen was determined to spend as little time discussing it as possible.
In the immediate post-race interview he said 34 words and three sentences without any mention of the race other than it being “a great weekend”. Speaking to Sky Sports F1 a short while after, he said that “any words” discussing the clash with Piastri “is just a waste of time for everyone”.
When asked about the changes in racing rules that he just mentioned, he shut it down again and told Rachel Brookes to look it up herself. “Honestly, whatever. I mean. It’s all written down.” He dismissed the possibility of an appeal and said the only thing in his interest was “going home”.
Not for the first time with Verstappen, it all appeared a little petulant. The Dutchman can be as prickly and spiky out of the car as he is in it. It was clear why he might have been frustrated, even if not just at the FIA but perhaps also at himself.
It was his poor start that allowed Piastri to take the first corner ahead of him after all. Had he then held off the McLaren and won the race, it would have been himself and not the Australian leading the standings after five rounds.
There is something deeper at play, though. Verstappen’s approach has changed in the last six months. Not on the track, because he is as robust as ever, but in his dealings with the media, how he responds to the FIA and how he handles the off-track world of Formula One.
The signs were evident in his response when informed of his penalty on Sunday. He did swear (“Yeah, that is f------ lovely”), but was rather restrained in his tone, that aside. Remember, last year at Abu Dhabi, when he had already won the championship, he called the stewards “f------ idiots”. And let us not forget his minor meltdown on the radio in Hungary last year.
There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, as Verstappen clarified later, his unwillingness to analyse the first-lap incident and the consequent penalty was because he did not want to “get penalised” or fined by the FIA. This is part of his ongoing stance against the FIA’s draconian punishments on swearing – he was not the only driver who was fined – and criticism of which he fell foul last year. That ended with him undertaking a form of “community service” in Rwanda.
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Verstappen (bottom) veered off the track in attempting to stay in front of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri (top) at turn one of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix incurring a penalty
There is, however, more to his actions and attitude than avoiding a fine. He has the cash reserves to be able to afford any monetary penalty if he truly wanted to speak his mind. Verstappen has always had a slight disdain for everything around the sport that is not about racing. In 2025 his single-minded approach to his work appears to have intensified.
Verstappen has been in F1 long enough to know that anything he says will be picked up and covered at great length. Given how fast race weekends come along these days, there is a perpetual news cycle and opportunities for him to be regularly quizzed on why he said this or why he did that. He also said that the misrepresentation on social media was another concern. Fair enough.
The four-time champion has clearly had enough of that and wants to feed into it as little as is humanly possible without running the risk of another fine for not fulfilling his media obligations. The problem is that whatever he says or does is going to be covered at length, especially if it is a resolute failure to engage. Perhaps even more so. Still, it is probably the lesser of two evils to him and also makes his point quite firmly. As he noted, too, it involves “less talking” for him, so it is a bonus.
More fundamentally, Verstappen gives the impression that he does not want to waste any time and energy in anything that is not his and his team’s pursuit of racing excellence. He wants to win races and almost everything else is an uninteresting sideshow at best and a profound annoyance at worst. Look at his (understandable) response to what happened at the F1 season launch in February. Maybe part of this current approach comes from the myriad crises in which he has been embroiled in the past year or so.
An unlikely diplomat
Red Bull’s past 12 months have been the team’s most turbulent time in its two decades despite winning the drivers’ title last year. Verstappen, remember, had to navigate the investigation (or rather hundreds of questions about it) into Christian Horner’s behaviour alongside a broader power struggle at the team which involved the Red Bull team principal, his own father, Jos, and team advisor Helmut Marko.
Add to that the departure of Adrian Newey after 20 years and throw in the current speculation that Verstappen will join the designer at Aston Martin next year and it adds up to a cacophony of distractions. He has handled this well. Although it may be sometimes difficult to believe, there is a diplomat in Verstappen. A terse and blunt one, but a diplomat nonetheless.
Then there is the crisis of the RB21 and the team’s development direction in the last year. Verstappen has been openly critical of the lack of progress in that regard but his performances are masking the car’s issues. After a scarcely believable run of 26 wins in 32 grands prix in 2023 and 2024 Verstsappen has won just three of the next 19, with only another six additional podiums in that period.
That he remains in championship contention in the Red Bull is the ultimate testament to his status as the finest driver on the grid and an all-time F1 great. With all that in mind, why would he want to get caught up in anything else?
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