Max Verstappen's full radio conversation with Red Bull race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase in the final dramatic scenes of the Abu Dhabi grand prix has been revealed.
Verstappen's dreams of his first F1 world championship title looked all but over with about six laps of the last race of the season left, as he trailed title rival Lewis Hamilton by too much.
Advert
At that point the Dutchman's main hope of catching the Mercedes ahead of him was the British driver's older tyres suddenly falling away or someone else crashing and causing a safety car to put him within striking distance of Hamilton.
The latter is exactly what happened, as Nicholas Latifi clashed with Mick Schumacher, leading to the safety car stoppage, and restart, that would eventually see Verstappen take first place in the race and become world champion.
Now the audio of Verstappen's conversation with his engineer Lambiase has been revealed, from Latifi's crash to the finish line, and it's a fascinating listen.
It's interesting how calm much of the conversation is, in complete contrast to how Hamilton's conversation with Peter Bonnington, or Bono, is going in his Mercedes.
Advert
Hamilton could clearly feel the title slipping out of his fingers, through no fault of his own, whilst Verstappen's chances of winning were slim until the moment Michael Massi decided to let unlapped cars through, in contrast to his previous decisions.
At that moment Lambiase says "This is mate, this is it!" as they finally accept the title challenge is well back on.
The most interesting part of the conversation is when the new world champion is initially told that the lapped cars between him and his predecessor will not be allowed to be unlapped.
The 24-year-old isn't surprised by the decision and there's a suggestion that Red Bull have been on the wrong end of decisions previously.
Of course at Abu Dhabi there was the incident on the first lap, in which Hamilton didn't have to cede position despite going off track, and that probably added to Verstappen's feelings.
Advert
However the controversy followed the title race all season, with both men getting the rub of the stewards decisions at different times, and the first lap incident in Abu Dhabi being very similar to the one Max got away with in Brazil.
Both teams would no doubt have felt hard done by at different points but in the end it was Verstappen and Red Bull who were given the most controversial, as they sped away with the drivers' championship.
Featured Image Credit: PATopics: Formula 1, Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton