Is the frosty treatment of Max by his race engineer a recemt thing, or am I only noticing it now?
I know Max said that if GP retires, he will stop racing, but it seems to me that GP has been less than diplomatic in his comms with Max this year.
Notable today was the “we all got that from your previous message” response to Max complaining about his tyres. Is it maybe a case of that’s just what works between them?
I don’t think I saw GP at the podium celebrations, but again it could just be me.
Would love some insight from you guys.
There’s no notable change here, that’s just how Max and GP prefer to communicate. Many driver/engineer pairings have the engineer prefer a calming communication style, but Horner has described Max and GP as a bickering old couple, and the analogy is apt. Max doesn’t want to hear that he can do this or to keep his head down, he wants to hear that there are no strategy options and nobody cares how bad the tires feel until the laptimes fall off.
You mostly don’t hear these radios except from the dominant leader and if the radio messages get truly spicy (hi Yuki!). It’s a very different style from Lewis and Bono, which was the last pairing we heard a lot of these messages for. But it’s how the two of them prefer to communicate and doesn’t reflect diminishing respect or satisfaction with the relationship.
*GP for Gianpiero. But otherwise, I think you’re spot on
Fixed, thanks chum.
I didn’t think it was anything out of the ordinary, they’re mostly straight forward with each other. They just have a great working relationship from what I can see.
tx. Yeah I read now that Horner said they were like an old married couple.
GP has always sounded like the dad that’s heard enough of Max’s shit. It seems to work for them well!
Maybe that’s just the kind of dad Max responds to. We don’t hear all the radio messages where GP threatens to leave him at a gas station
It’s kind of true, Max spend his whole racing career hearing it exactly how it is. Not someone trying to not hurt his feelings. Jos told him if he fucked up, and made sure Max understood.
I do get that feeling from hearing Max’s interviews - he does love racing, but has a rather professional demeanor much of the time. And a lot of the other drivers are like him in that regard, at least from what I can tell. (Well, maybe except Kimi late in his career, when it was just a hobby.)
Business as usual to me. They’ve always been direct to each other.
It feels like next level cope to me, to start dissecting Max’s communication with his engineer to look for a weak spot lmao.