Max: "We're no Sunday drivers!"

Published on 03 July 2015 by Stefan Meens

Ahead of the British Grand Prix, Max Verstappen caught up with the Dutch press discussing a whole array of topics including Bernie Ecclestone and the GPDA.

The former met up with Max during the weekend of the Austrian Grand Prix. Max enjoyed his chat with the 84-year-old F1 supremo. “It was fun and just to set the record straight: I can't completely switch my display off. You can switch off certain parts and I occasionally do so”, referred Max to his entertaining dialogue with Bernie.

The constant flow of information could be a bit less, explains Max: “Sometimes you get too much info you just don’t need. In Formula 3 I knew my lap and sector times and the water temperature, which was sometimes enough. You don’t want to be talked to in every corner of every lap.”

Luckily Max has a good relationship with his race engineer Xevi Pujolar. “He knows when he can talk and he never says too much. He senses when it's the right time so I'm very happy with that.”

Another topic Max answered questions on was the opinions of his colleagues regarding the youngster's driving style. “I don’t really care about what they say. I just do my thing and defend the way I want to defend. They're the ones that need to adapt”, smiles Max before joking: “We're no Sunday drivers!”

“Sometimes people complain about me moving across the track, even if I just move once. But you want to defend your position. Isn’t that what we fight for?”, says Max. “At least they know it's not easy to get past me”.

Talking about drivers, the topic switches to the “drivers' union”, the Grand Prix Drivers Association (GPDA). Like Kimi Raikkonen, Max does not see the benefit of becoming a member. “They discuss a lot of thing but in the end nothing really happens. I don’t think the changes are coming from the GPDA.”

“Also, why join the GPDA if the drivers are constantly commenting on one another. The GPDA talks about 'racing united' but all the drivers do is moan about each other in the press. I also don’t think they care about a 17-year-old's opinion so I don’t see the benefit of joining the GPDA."

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