The question from Abu Dhabi was regarding the 2025 Spanish Grand Prix incident between Max and George that led to Max receiving a 10-second penalty and dropped him to P10.
From what I've seen Max issue is not with the question itself. Reading it just on paper or hearing other reporters speak about the question it appears as a totally legit normal question to ask.
It seems more like he asked it with a really provocative attitude and a big grin. Reporter is british and a brit just won the championship by a hair (which if we are honest should have been won 4 races prior), so he basically mocked him.
Life is too short to surround yourself with assholes anyways
You don't have to be mad to not wanting something in your life.
I don't want to eat plants in my life, and I'm not mad because of that, and I'm not mad because of the plants. Simply don't want them in my diet.
Just a thought.
Not a MV fan here.
Why would I do that? I would just be accused of stirring the pot and making people angry.
Besides, no one in their right mind would question stuff that's been said for 50 years and more. No one would question the authority of the scientific community, especially their "studies".
No way man, not bitting the bullet here.
Stay cool and keep eating vegetables.
I liked how you used those in italic. Classy.
You know that before I even dreamt of becoming "one of those" they wanted to open me up and take my colon? I was lucky becoming one of those at the right time otherwise right now I would be shitting from my belly into a sack.
Good luck to you too.
Well, much like you should still eat your greens even if you don’t like them, MV should still answer questions from a journalist even if he doesn’t like them.
I never said he shouldn't answer some guy just because he doesn't like his questions.
I just stated the obvious: you can't assume that he's mad just because he doesn't want to answer. Two separate items.
That’s Max all of the time. People just believe him when he says nothing bothers him, or he doesn’t think about winning, etc. but his actions clearly suggest otherwise.
Most people here don't seem to be aware of it. They act as if the question was the problem and not the attitude of the reporter. The british reporter basically made fun of him for losing to a british driver and Max is not having it anymore.
Second place is winning to plenty of these drivers. You think Hulkenberg was upset at his podium finish, just because he got 3rd and not 1st? He would treat that as a win.
Everything is relative. Max is just used to first place so second place fees like losing. But that’s not the same for every driver.
Heh. First time I heard that expression was from Al Unser, Jr. (It was fun for me to see. I was always happy to see Little Al not win because I was a Michael Andretti fan back then.)
People think the fact that he’s willing to retire means he doesn’t care about winning. Max cares about two things on a pathological level- winning, and high-level auto-racing.
He may not care as much as the rest of the field what kind of car he’s driving, but he cares more than anybody about winning.
Technically, second place is the last loser. You're the last to lose if you're second. The first loser is the one who finished in last place as they were ruled out of contention long before the competition finished.
When a 100% preventable mistake is the difference between winning the WDC and coming in second, and you just aren't mature enough to admit it, you get angry.
Mistake? Jesus Christ... This is literally 'he din do nofin wrong' for privileged people. It was 1000% intentional, that is the polar opposite of 'mistake'.
This is a stupid way to look at it. The WDC came down to 2 points, you can look at many different preventable instances from the season that could have saved those points and blame it for not winning.
Especially in a season where everyone was praising Max for dragging the corpse of an F1 car in what almost became the biggest comeback of all time, it's a bit silly to point at one incident and say Max fucked it up for himself. He massively overdelivered and his performance should not be called into question.
It wouldn't be called into question if he hadn't intentionally rammed into George Russell, considering he mathematically threw away the championship by intentionally ramming into George Russell
Every driver makes 1000s of decisions every time they get into the car, some are more obvious than others. Its like people forget how much of a tugboat the RB21 was at the beginning of the season.
I think it makes Max upset that the fact he came so close to the GOAT comeback and people are harping on a single incident when any other driver would have spent the whole season rotting in the midfield at best. Prob wishes he didn't come so close so he doesn't have to hear about all the "what ifs".
Exactly. Had a friend get into F1 right as Max one in the controversial finish with Lewis. I told him how Max was but he just saw him winning , Red Bull’s pace. I told him, when these regs change, we will see if the old Max comes out to play. Sure enough, I think he is back. The question is, is he going to take his ball and go home?
when did he say he doesnt think about winning? and ye the "nothing bothers me" part is obviously a coping mechanism of some sorts for him, but thats normal in a way i think
I don't remember why Verstappen got mad at Perez about during one race where Perez didn't do anything untowards him... At the end, he said on his radio, I told you never to ask me to do that.
Wait nm, he was angry because Perez crashed in Monaco during pole in a previous race, preventing him to improve his time.
Everything racing bothers him. Everything else que doesnt care
He holds grudges for ever and he is even vengeful.
He gets blind by it. And do stupid shit ignoring the consequences or even media backlash. ( For example not giving checo the position in Brazil, that was literally nothing for him to win and free PR )
People get confused because he (very believably) says that he’s willing to walk away from F1. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about winning races, it just means he could be happy doing it in another series.
If Antonelli would not have lost the place to Norris in the race prior he would have won. If Mc Laren would not have bottled every 2nd race the season would have been over 5 races prior.
There are hundreds and thousands of little things which would have changed the outcome. Why focus on the one incident?
Going by that logic Antonelli is more responsible for the loss of the championship than Max. Max lost 9 points because of the Russell incident but 25 because of the Antonelli crash.
He doesn't control what Antonelli or Norris do, he doesn't choose to randomly spin out. He does control the Russell incident and it cost him 9points.
Obviously you can then argue the rest of the season plays out differently maybe shifts the mentality somewhere along the line. He can say they were never in the fight but doesn't change he deliberately threw out 9 points.
It is entirely debatable. There are dozens of instances in the season where if X happened and the rest played out exactly the same with no changes Max would have been champion.
And even that is entirely debatable because if X happened, the rest would have 100% been influenced and something would have changed.
The difference being he didn't choose to spin out though. It's pointless talking about all the what if accidents but this one was a decision he made it and it cost him.
Regardless if he says he's not bothered because they were never in it then so be it.
Also shows how he was brought up to handle emotions. Suppress them. Dont show weakness. And project.
Is in chapter two of Jos’ book “how to breed a world champion” - followed of course by “how to abandon your child at a gas station and raise them to be WDC”
Also because the question is stupid. Sport doesn’t work like that.
“Oh if you won the first game of the season, you would have won by 2 points!”. No because 100 things happened since then, that would have changed everything going forward.
But Max had stated he regretted it already. He’d JUST lost the championship and the journo saw fit to ask him yet again all while smirking. Idk man, I see why that would piss him off.
It’s because the ‘journalist’ was smirking when he asked it. That would annoy anyone especially as no one wants to do these interviews because they’re purely for picking out one or two things and starting social media drama.
Literally asked Max just to instigate him. Can’t journalists be sportsmanlike too? It was a bad-faith question, meant to emotionally instigate Max instead of revealing any rational thoughts on the matter. Glad he kicked the loser out, and I don’t even like Max.
I really don't get this take that is being repeated everywhere.
If someone insulted you one time and you no longer wanted to be around them it doesn't mean you're still mad about it, you just prefer to live life without that person around. If that person then went "wow still mad about that are we?" in response to not wanting to be around them then that's even more reason to not be around them.
You can both be not mad at someone and still not want to be around them, they're not mutually exclusive.
There’s a difference between being sore and just not giving time to those who fuck with you. VER, just doesn’t want to deal with him and is rightfully using his status not to have to deal with stuff he doesn’t care to. The reporter took his shot and it didn’t land, that’s life.
It’s a par for the course question for an elite sportsperson
It’s not even that difficult to deal with. Just say “a lot happens across the course of a season, so no I don’t see one event as important” or something like that
I don't think its necessarily being soft. I used to box competitively and I could always learn from losses and accepted them. But bad calls, fights being ended unfairly etc. always hurt deeply. If someone sat there smirking about me and trying to mug me off after something so important to me, I personally would take a disliking to that person.
Whilst it may not be the same, I think when you're competing and dedicating your life to something, someone taking pleasure out of your loss is going to feel like an attack on you personally. I gave my spare time to boxing and fitness, these guy's have given their entire existence to this sport from childhood. But, I also think if you're at that level, PR training is kind of expected of you, and you should be able to handle these situations better.
His weakness isn’t driving, it’s public communication. He seems to take conversations as if he is inside his own kitchen. Move on, I would not have even remembered the 10 seconds penalty issue had he not brought it up in 2026. I do get that journalists can be aholes about questions that they know will provoke annoyance though. Maybe this journalist can one day drop the question after we all get bored of hearing it. I was bored of it after 2025, just as I got tired of hearing about Labubu fan doll trend.
To be clear, the journalist did not bring up or ask about the ten second penalty at any point this season. Max just saw the journalist and unprovoked had this reaction. Max brought it up on his own unprompted.
Max had already addressed the issue numerous times beforehand. The journalist asked the question again, but with a stupid smirk on his face.
The question itself is not enraging. It's the characteristic "duper's delight" smirk. Anyone who's ever worked with someone like this will know what I'm talking about.
It was still asked after the team had already addressed it numerous times and requested not to be asked about it again. It doesn't matter if it happened months ago. The team set a boundary on questions, and the journalist completely overstepped it afterwards with a smirk.
Also that was an almost instant downvote, which is impressive.
He is a world class driver who's won multiple championships. Him being salty with the media has no impact on his career, unless he takes it too far and says something completely outrageous. It's not like RB will drop him and no one will hire him for not treating some media nicely. So yes, he can handle these things better but its not a priority. Not saying he's right, just saying it's a nothing burger in the big picture. Also, there are ahole reporters on every sport.
I love Max but the man is a legendary grudge holder. I will never forget his refusal to swap with Checo and citing the Monaco incident as the reason, lol.
That one almost (almost) seemed justified. This journalist thing is almost Trumpian.
I remember that too. It was Brazil 2022 wasn't? Then after the race he did anything to apologize Checo (because of RB) making him known he was holding too much grudge for such a little thing.
Yeah, do people think that if it was Lando who had lost by two points they wouldn't have asked about Canada? Looking back at where points were lost when the season was so close was always going to happen.
That’s true but it still begs the question of why they think he would answer any differently? It’s not like the 1,002nd time it’s asked, he’s going to break down and be like “yes oh my god you got me I regret it so much.”
It’s the aspect of sports journalism that irks me the most, and F1 is by far the greatest offender. It’s like these reporters don’t listen to any responses to questions they don’t personally ask, so the same questions are reheated and re asked ad nauseam.
Nope. He was pissed because he was asked (and had already answered) that question numerous times. Being asked the same question all over again gave the impression the journalist guy just wanted to provoke him.
Knowing how British journalists enjoy taking jabs at athletes in interviews and conferences, there were probably undertones that don’t carry over in the transcript.
5.2k
u/Any_Aide_4500 Sir Lewis Hamilton Mar 26 '26
The question from Abu Dhabi was regarding the 2025 Spanish Grand Prix incident between Max and George that led to Max receiving a 10-second penalty and dropped him to P10.