Red Bull retaliate after Verstappen relationship questioned

An Instagram post celebrating Max Verstappen and Gianpiero Lambiase has appeared on Red Bull’s social media, in a likely retaliation to Lewis Hamilton’s comments about the pair's working relationship.

The seven-time world champion delivered a polite but frustrated statement to the media in Shanghai, where he criticised coverage of his team radio exchanges with new race engineer Riccardo Adami last weekend in Melbourne.

Whilst Hamilton did deliver a series of curt responses to Adami’s persistent chatter when asking to be ‘left alone’ in Australia, the 40-year-old confirmed there is no wider issue between himself and the Italian.

The British legend also hit out at the media’s double standard in regards to Verstappen, claiming that the Dutchman's ‘abuse’ towards Red Bull engineer Lambiase is not met with the same scrutiny.

Red Bull deliver cheeky Verstappen reminder

Lambiase has served as Verstappen’s race engineer since the champion joined Red Bull in 2016, and whilst their partnership has yielded four championships, Verstappen’s communications have been slammed over the years - particularly his foul-mouthed tirade at the 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix.

Hamilton referenced these instances as he spoke to Sky Sports at the Chinese GP this weekend, saying: "Unfortunately, you [the media] make… the conversation that Max has with an engineer over the years, the abuse that the poor guy's taken and you never write about it, but you wrote about the smallest little discussion I had with mine."

After these comments were made public however, a post from Red Bull quickly emerged starring Lambiase and Verstappen, perhaps in a not-so-subtle reference to Hamilton’s claims of ‘abuse’.

The carousel of pictures on the team’s Instagram demonstrated the strength of Verstappen and Lambiase's friendship, with the race engineer giving the Dutchman a huge huge and every slide showing them doubled over in laughter or joy.

Red Bull’s caption did not reference Hamilton’s comments, and simply said “MV, GP” with two emojis fist-bumping each other, in a post perfectly timed after their rival's quotes, on their 'X' account, the Red Bull team wrote: "We'll casually leave these here..." alongside the friendly snaps.

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