Max Verstappen reveals Singapore GP radio issue has plagued him all year

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen says the radio issues he battled at the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix have given him “difficulty” all season.

The four-time world champion converted his first pole at the Marina Bay circuit to a maiden Singapore Grand Prix victory on Sunday over Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

Verstappen completed a clean sweep of the Singapore weekend, which included a sprint pole and win on Saturday.

While he was in command at the front of Sunday’s 62-lap grand prix, he was unable to communicate to his pitwall due to a radio issue.

“Maybe he was happy it wasn’t working!”

It meant Verstappen and his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase had to communicate through coded messages.

Verstappen says it’s an issue that has impacted him all season, including earlier in the weekend, but hadn’t been as bad as it was today.

“Yeah, maybe he [Lambiase] was happy here that it was not working,” he joked, in reference to their often tense radio messages.

“I couldn't really say anything.

“Yeah, he did try at one point to ask me a few things in code, and I think he understood well what I meant or did not do, right? 

“But it's never nice. But I'm having already the whole season difficulty with my radio, and this weekend has been particularly bad.”

“Something wasn’t right at the start again”

Verstappen was worried about his start coming into Sunday’s race, with the Red Bull driver narrowly defending his lead into Turn 1 off the line.

But he admits there was another problem with his car, which requires investigating.

“Well, start was critical, so that was just good enough,” he added.

“And again, something was not particularly right at the start.

“So I need to understand what went wrong there before releasing the clutch. Didn't feel good.

But yeah, it was just good enough. Then we had, for a few laps, some deployment issues, so that's where Charles almost got me actually into Turn 7.

“And once we had cleared the deployment problems, yeah, it was fine.

“The car was really good on the tyres; I could really manage them well. But to be honest, I think it was one of the first times that I've driven in clean air here in Singapore in the race, so I guess that's also nice.

“And yeah, it's been just a fantastic weekend for us.

“I mean, we were flying on the soft. We were okay on the medium.

“Then of course with the VSC, I think it was right what Charles did with pitting and going for it back on a soft tyre.

“But yeah, we just had it under control and of course, yeah, really happy to win here.”