5 of the Most Interesting Radio Messages from 2016 Mexican Grand Prix
Sebastian Vettel turned Formula One's radio airwaves blue in Sunday's Mexican Grand Prix at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
Having been restricted to just one podium finish in 10 races, the four-time world champion had seemed set to make a welcome return to the top three in Mexico, where he pressurised Red Bull driver Max Verstappen into an error in the latter stages.
That should have been enough to guarantee a podium finish, but Verstappen's refusal to gift the position to him saw the Ferrari driver launch an astonishing outburst, with F1's referee even coming in for some criticism.
A post-race penalty for Verstappen meant Vettel did stand on the podium after all, but he too was stripped of third place after another stewards' investigation for defending too robustly against Daniel Ricciardo, who inherited the position.
Vettel's rant leads our analysis of the best Mexican GP radio messages, with race winner Lewis Hamilton, McLaren-Honda's Fernando Alonso and others also featuring.
Sebastian Vettel Angered by Behaviour of Red Bull's Max Verstappen
1 of 5
Several established drivers have ganged up on Verstappen as this season has progressed, yet Vettel has always been a little more cautious in his criticism of the teenager.
Perhaps it was because he had never been a victim of Verstappen's tricks until now, or maybe Seb sees a lot of himself in Red Bull's latest record-breaking youngster, but the four-time world champion has been particularly eager to offer him some guidance.
After Verstappen risked catapulting Kimi Raikkonen into the trees at Spa, for instance, Vettel—as reported by Crash.net—spoke of the need to educate, to respect other drivers and to simply talk to each other.
But the prospect of Vettel and Verstappen ever sitting face-to-face at a table and having a full and frank discussion probably ended at the Mexican GP.
Having made his solitary pit stop as early as Lap 12 of 71, Verstappen found himself being caught by Vettel—whose medium-compound tyres were 20 laps fresher—as the race entered its latter stages.
"OK, gap now 3.5 [seconds]," Red Bull race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase warned on Lap 62. "Vettel last lap..."
"Yeah, I see him coming," Verstappen interrupted, displaying the kind of awareness and calmness under pressure that will make him a multiple world champion in the coming years.
"OK, mate," replied Lambiase, confident his driver would do what he needed to do and perhaps a little surprised that Verstappen could already spot Vettel in his rearview mirrors or on the big screens dotted around the circuit.
The Ferrari became a much larger presence in his mirrors over the following laps, forcing Verstappen into an uncharacteristic error on Lap 68, when he locked up and ran off the track at Turn 1 before rejoining ahead of Vettel.
"OK, give the position, I think you're gonna have to give the position back, Max," Lambiase said, convinced his driver had gained an unfair advantage.
But, from Verstappen's perspective at least, the keyword here was "think," for while it would have been sporting to swap positions with Vettel, there was no official stewards' ruling stating he had to at that stage.
And rather than following F1 etiquette by switching places at the earliest available opportunity, Verstappen refused to move aside.
"OK, he has to let me go! He has to let me go!" Vettel cried, already fearing Verstappen—renowned for his knack of pushing F1's rules to the absolute limit—would ignore the unofficial code of conduct.
"OK, copy. Stay calm," reassured his race engineer, Riccardo Adami.
If Verstappen was prepared to let Vettel past, the easiest place to do so would have been on the long straights toward Turns 1 and 4. Those opportunities came and went, however, and Vettel took to trying to force the issue, daring to poke his front wing down the inside of Turn 4 on Lap 69.
"Move! Move, for f--k's sake," Vettel shouted as Ricciardo—who had switched on to the fresher, faster soft tyres on Lap 50—rapidly caught the pair of them. "He's a [censored], that's what he is."
"I mean, am I the only one? Or are you not seeing what I'm seeing?" he added seconds later in a message presumably directed at FIA race director Charlie Whiting. "He's just backing me off into Ricciardo!"
Vettel again tried to follow Verstappen closely through the opening series of corners, but that only compromised his exit at Turn 3 and left him vulnerable to Ricciardo.
Ricciardo tried his luck down the inside of Turn 4 and, yes, Vettel did move under braking as he covered the pass—making the same manoeuvre for which Verstappen has been frequently criticised in recent months—although his desperate defensive tactics were a function of his rising frustration with the teenager.
"I mean, honestly, I'm going to hit someone. I think I have a puncture. Rear-left," Vettel reported after making contact with Ricciardo.
"Tyres are fine, tyres are fine," insisted Adami.
"He has to give me the position! End of the story!" Vettel demanded on the final lap.
"Charlie said, Charlie said..."
"Yeah? You know what? Here's a message for Charlie: F--k off! Honestly! F--k off!" Vettel raged before a familiar voice joined the discussion.
"Sebastian!" began Maurizio Arrivabene, the Ferrari team principal. "Sebastian, calm down. Calm down. They are under investigation. I know that it's not fair, but calm down. Put your head down and we talk afterward."
Given the reported tension between Arrivabene and Vettel in recent weeks, it would have been no surprise had Seb also told his boss where to go at that point.
But, fascinatingly, the words of Arrivabene—rarely heard over team radio—almost seemed to flick a switch in Vettel, who suddenly realised he had been too emotional for his own good in the closing laps.
"OK, copy Maurizio," Vettel responded calmly before the conversation continued after the chequered flag but not before the four-time world champion pulled alongside and waved his finger at Verstappen.
According to Gianlu D'Alessandro on Twitter, Vettel commented: "I think I showed enough. I mean, overtaking's not a walk in the park, so to me it's clear. That's the last what I'm saying."
"Sebastian, we understand, we talk afterwards and we are going to talk with FIA. You have done a great race. Really. I'm proud of you," Arrivabene replied.
"Grazie ragazzi. Strategy worked well. Grazie ragazzi. Shame about yesterday because the pace was there to do more. Grazie," Vettel signed off, reminded of his responsibilities as a servant of the Prancing Horse.
Although Vettel has been widely criticised for his comments over the radio, drivers expressing their emotions—especially in a sport as sterile as F1—should never be discouraged, whether those emotions are directed at their fellow drivers, their own teams or, indeed, the referee.
Lewis Hamilton Survives Edgy Race to Claim 2nd Successive Victory
2 of 5
On the surface, Hamilton's pole-to-flag victory in the Mexican GP was his most comfortable win of the season, a weekend when Nico Rosberg was simply unable to match him for pace and when everything went his way.
But behind the dominant result and the confidence with which he attacked the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez was a certain edginess, a lingering fear that anything could go disastrously wrong at any given moment.
As reported by F1 journalist Tobi Gruener, that paranoia had led to Hamilton asking Mercedes to change his power unit after Friday practice as he sought to take every possible precaution, leaving nothing to chance.
And we caught a glimpse of that anxiety on Sunday as Hamilton and Mercedes almost micromanaged their way through the race.
For all the concerns that the car might give up on him, it was in fact the driver who faltered on the opening lap as Hamilton—under minimal pressure from those behind—locked up and skated across the grass at Turn 1, suffering a severe flatspot on his front-right tyre.
"How's that vibration?" Hamilton asked as the field trundled behind the safety car on Lap 3.
"Yeah, we're not super-concerned Lewis, it depends if you can live with it," replied his race engineer, Pete Bonnington.
"It's definitely gonna be hard. Hundred-degree difference between the two front brakes," Hamilton reported, confirming a difference in temperature—the front-right brake disc was 250 degrees centigrade cooler than the left, per Motor Sport Magazine's Mark Hughes—had caused the lockup.
Despite Bonnington's reassurance that there was relatively little to worry about, protecting his driver by hiding the reality of the situation, the vibrations he was suffering did cause great concern on the pit wall.
As technical boss Paddy Lowe told Motorsport.com's Adam Cooper, Hamilton had suffered a "medium-high" flatspot, with the vibrations leaving the team debating whether to call the No. 44 car in for a safety-first pit stop and gift the win—and, in all likelihood, the championship—to Rosberg or to stay out.
They opted for the latter—hoping and praying the vibrations wouldn't destroy the suspension—and Hamilton continued to circulate until his solitary pit stop on Lap 17, which came two-to-three laps earlier than planned.
With the damaged rubber gone and with the suspension able to breathe a much-needed sigh of relief, Hamilton was free to resume his race as normal on a fresh set of medium-compound tyres.
But just 10 laps into his second stint, he was struggling for balance.
"These tyres don't really feel that great," he commented on Lap 27, his apprehension clear in his tone of voice.
The rubber became much better as his second stint progressed before Hamilton came to his last real hurdle to victory—successfully making his way past the lapped traffic—on Lap 45.
"Now, Lewis, we're coming up on a lot of traffic. Got [Daniil] Kvyat four seconds ahead, he's in a group of eight cars. Eight," Bonnington informed his driver, ensuring there were no shocks or surprises waiting ahead for Hamilton.
Given Hamilton's obvious concerns over the lifespan of his engines—after the United States GP, he told Sky Sports F1 he spent the race "haunted by the sound" he heard when he suffered a failure in Malaysia—the next message came as a surprise.
"And you can use Overtake to get past these backmarkers," Bonnington said on Lap 46, giving Hamilton permission to use the engine setting normally reserved for wheel-to-wheel battles, which gives an aggressive, short-lived surge in power.
"Just be careful," Bonnington warned, "they are racing."
With the traffic cleared, the job seemed all but done, yet there was still one more problem to negotiate, one more issue to manage.
According to Sky Sports' Ted Kravitz, the high altitude of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez meant cooling was more important than at any other venue on the calendar, with Hamilton's exhaust temperatures rising to potentially dangerous levels—a telltale sign of a potential problem—in the latter stages.
As such, Bonnington instructed Hamilton to switch to a more conservative engine setting for the remaining laps and was there to meet his driver when he finally made it to the finish line.
"Get in there, Lewis! Great result, mate! Really solid weekend, really solid weekend! Well done!" he exclaimed, appearing to celebrate yet another routine victory on yet another easy afternoon.
But behind closed doors at Mercedes, they all knew it wasn't quite as simple as that.
Fernando Alonso's Frustration with McLaren-Honda Appears Once Again
3 of 5
Curious, isn't it?
Most people in F1 have been surprised by how well Alonso—the most demanding, ruthless competitor of them all—has dealt with McLaren-Honda's struggles over the last two seasons.
Although the results have often suggested otherwise, Alonso has only rarely deviated from the party line, insisting the project is "going in the right direction" and that McLaren could be the ones to bring Mercedes' dominance to an end, per Sky Sports' Pete Gill.
But fill him up with adrenaline and stick him in a car lost in the midfield and the real Fernando Alonso—the Fernando Alonso we know, love and sometimes love to hate—returns.
Alonso had been overjoyed with his 11th-place result in qualifying, which allowed him to start on a tyre compound of his choice in a race of varied strategies.
Yet a poor opening lap—when he was eased on to the grass by Carlos Sainz Jr. and "seemed always to be in the wrong place at the wrong time," as he told the team's official website—left him unable to take full advantage of starting on the soft tyres.
Sainz's pit stop on Lap 12 gave Alonso the free air he needed, but when he was instructed to increase his pace in preparation for his own visit to the pits, the two-time world champion let rip.
"Push now, push now," his race engineer, Mark Temple, said on Lap 16.
"Yes, I am pushing! I am pushing from the Lap 1! But we have traffic for 15 laps with a car that should not be in the race. So do your job, I'm doing mine."
At a time respectable results are still hard to come by, you would imagine outbursts such as this, Canada 2015 and Japan 2015 would only add to the problems, the stresses and strains at McLaren.
But as Kravitz noted during Sky Sports' television coverage of the race, the team simply "roll their eyes, smile to each other and let him get on with the job because, more often than not, he delivers."
.jpg?w=256 "Colts Jaguars Football")
Sergio Perez Upset After His Home Race Is Ruined by Force India's Strategy
4 of 5
You only needed to observe the pre-race drivers' parade—the barrage of noise, the vibrant colours, the waving flags and the rows upon rows of eyes—to know how the weight of expectation can affect an F1 driver at their home race.
Sergio Perez had played to the crowd when he passed through the already-iconic stadium section, telling the 30,000 faces crammed into the grandstands how their human heat could "make the difference" and propel him to a strong result.
After the disappointment of missing out on the third segment of qualifying on Saturday, he had made a reasonable start to the race, jumping from 12th to ninth and running closely behind Valtteri Bottas in the early laps.
Fitted with the more durable soft-compound tyres while his closest rivals ran with the supersofts, Perez appeared to be in a promising position as he circulated behind the Williams, but his afternoon took a turn for the worst when Bottas pitted at the end of Lap 19.
"OK Checo, everything you've got! Everything you've got!" he was told by his race engineer, Tim Wright, on Lap 20 as Bottas' stop put him in clean air.
Perez did give it everything he had on his in-lap, yet that still wasn't enough, with the local hero re-emerging from his stop not only behind Bottas but the sister Williams of Felipe Massa, who pitted as early as Lap 14.
Stuck behind a car that, in the hands of Bottas, set one of the fastest-ever top speeds recorded in F1 during the race, Perez was unable to make a serious impression on Massa.
And after being forced into an overambitious lunge at Turn 1 on Lap 25—when he locked up, ran wide and fell even further behind his sparring partner from Canada 2014—Perez urged the pit wall to change their strategy on Lap 27.
"So think of something, man. Why did you box me so late? Let's think of something to overtake them. It's very difficult, I cannot pass them."
Despite his pleas, Perez continued to stare at Massa's rear wing as Force India remained committed to a one-stop race.
"Checo, how are the tyres? How are the tyres?" Wright checked on Lap 38 as his driver sat in Massa's turbulent air.
"They are good, they are good," replied Perez, who couldn't resist having another moan at his team. "I don't know why you stopped me so late!"
Given the amount of excellent strategy calls made by Force India—particularly on his side of the garage—over the course of 2016, Perez was mortified that their one dodgy decision came at his home track, in his home race and in front of his people.
And he wouldn't let them forget it.
Juan Pablo Montoya Bothers Lewis Hamilton and Esteban Gutierrez
5 of 5
Ah, Juan Pablo Montoya.
The multiple grand prix winner, the two-time Indianapolis 500 champion and, for a long time, the undisputed king of team radio.
Who, after all, could ever forget his "oh deer" message all those years ago in Austria? Or his expletive-ridden rant about Raikkonen at Spa?
Monty is a huge reason why pit-to-car radio—this passage into a racing driver's innermost thoughts—is so popular among spectators, but the Colombian came close to spoiling his legacy in Mexico, where he continued a failed experiment first trialled by Sky Sports pundit Johnny Herbert at Suzuka.
Hamilton's 10th pole position of 2016 was arguably his most routine yet, with the three-time world champion virtually unchallenged by Rosberg throughout the session.
Having taken one more step toward salvaging his season, Hamilton would surely have loved to have celebrated with Mercedes as he crossed the line, but first he had to accept the congratulations of JPM.
"Hey Lewis, this is Juan Montoya, you copy?"
"Whassup, Juan?" replied Hamilton, so relaxed that it sounded like he had just bumped into the former Williams and McLaren driver in the Mercedes hospitality unit.
"How are you? Hey, congratulations on that 10th pole of the year! How was that lap?"
"Good to hear from you, man. Erm...that was OK. Could be better, but it's great to be up there and it's great for the team to have a one-two," he responded, pretending to be pleased that Rosberg had managed to join him on the front row of the grid.
With Hamilton already showing signs of zoning out into interview mode, that particular interview was cut short there and then, but it didn't take long for Radio Montoya to return to the airwaves.
If these radio interviews are to become a regular feature on a grand prix weekend, the waiting room that is the formation lap is probably the best—or rather, least-worst—time to get them over and done with as the drivers crawl slowly around the circuit.
But as Esteban Gutierrez gathered his thoughts ahead of his first F1 appearance on home soil, his focus was punctured by that familiar voice.
"Esteban, this is Juan Montoya. I hope you have a great day, how you feeling?"
"I'm feeling great," replied the Monterrey native, one of the more human, grounded drivers on the current grid. "Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot everybody. It feels like being in Mexico!"
Of course, hearing one of their local heroes publicly thank them shortly before the race would have been welcomed by the Mexican crowd.
Yet did that distraction affect Gutierrez, who very nearly ran into the rear of Jenson Button before colliding with Manor's Pascal Wehrlein just two corners into the race?
Just a thought.
Unless otherwise stated, all team-radio quotes, as well as timing and tyre data, sourced from the official F1 website, Pirelli's official race report, the FOM television feed and Sky Sports' television coverage of the Mexican GP.
.jpg?w=480 "Colts Jaguars Football")
