Max Verstappen shares his ‘most embarrassing F1 moment’ which angered Helmut Marko

Max Verstappen makes subtle dig at Lewis Hamilton in April

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Max Verstappen has enjoyed a stellar start to his F1 career and is on track to become a two-time world champion at the age of 25 later this year. However, like every other driver to ever position themselves on the grid, he has endured his fair share of forgettable and embarrassing moments.

In a recently-shared interview on Reddit, Verstappen explained that his most embarrassing moment in F1 so far was his pit stop error in a disastrous 2016 United States Grand Prix. On lap 27, the Dutchman was chasing Mercedes duo Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg but took the surprise decision to box without receiving the instruction.

The Red Bull garage unsurprisingly wasn’t ready for him, and after a 9.2s stop, he re-entered the race from third to seventh. It’s clearly a moment that still lives with him six years later as he ran through his thought process during the debacle.

He said: “I know exactly what I want [to say]. 2016, Austin. It was going quite well. I was closing on the guys in third and fourth. And then with my engineer, he would say push out, push out. And that normally meant, back then, you’re pitting that lap, but I knew that I had to speed up.

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“He said that, so I was doing my lap in Austin and on the second to last corner, the fast left turn, I went in, all good, and then I just drove to the pit lane, the pit entry, and I drove into the corner, and I realise he never called me in. He didn’t tell me to pit; he never said it. And I was like, ‘Oh my God, what did I just do?’

“I’m in the pit lane. I’m like, ‘Guys, I’m pitting, I’m pitting, I’m in the pit.’ And then suddenly you see all the guys running out; they were taking random tyres. And yeah, the pit stop was eight, nine seconds or whatever. I mean, considering what I did, it was still a very fast pit stop. After the pitstop, of course, I didn’t say anything because it didn’t make sense to argue then.”

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZLcngYamBZY

Verstappen eventually retired from the race due to a faulty gearbox, which he believes may have been a blessing in disguise after his blunder. He added: “So I just continued, but then within like three laps, my gearbox or, I don’t know, something died, so my car retired. Luckily, maybe, because can you imagine nothing happened?”

However, he admitted that Marko was ‘angry’ at the mistake, which cost Red Bull further ground on Mercedes in a one-side world title fight. “And then yeah, after the race, you know, having the discussion, Helmet was pretty angry at me,” Verstappen continued. “I was like, ‘Yeah, I f****d up’ after he called me in. I mean, what can you say?”

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