Max Verstappen has told his F1 critics that if they don’t like his radio communication, they can simply “turn the volume down”.

Verstappen’s powertrain came under fire after the Hungarian Grand Prix after he criticised race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase following a difficult day of racing and poor strategy that left him fifth in what he described as a “rescue” mission.

He finished fifth after a collision with Lewis Hamilton and has a history of strict radio communication with Lambiase when events don’t go to plan.

However, Verstappen, who has dismissed claims of a Red Bull sim racing ban against him after Hungary, has had a direct and blunt suggestion for his critics.

“If people don’t like the way I talk, don’t listen and turn the volume down,” Verstappen told the media, including RacingNews365.

“I’m very hungry for success and I’ve proven that and I always want to optimise things.

“Now, people might think I might not be very vocal on the radio, but that’s their opinion.

“In my opinion, it needed to be said at the time because we’re very open and we value each other very much as a team.

“That’s worked very well for us so I don’t expect that to change. It’s important to be critical because in the world we live in now, I feel that a lot of people can’t take criticism as well as they used to.

“I don’t want to end up like this.”

Radio messages
Verstappen was also pressed about broadcasting radio messages in general, but believes that bad radio traffic from FOM is just part of Formula 1 racing that has to be tolerated.

“It’s also a problem because in other sports people talk but there’s no microphone attached to their mouths,” he said.

“You can argue about broadcasting but I don’t care, I’ll say what I want.

“It’s a sport, you communicate a lot with the pit wall and have the opportunity to talk, but in other sports you can swear about things you don’t like, like a teammate not passing the ball, you can call him whatever you want, but here there’s no microphone, so that’s just the way our sport is.”