{"id":366821,"date":"2025-12-23T14:18:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T14:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/366821\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T14:18:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T14:18:09","slug":"max-verstappen-explains-why-he-didnt-pay-the-abu-dhabi-drivers-dinner-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/366821\/","title":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen explains why he didn\u2019t pay the Abu Dhabi drivers\u2019 dinner bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

Max Verstappen<\/a> has revealed that he was actually supposed to pick up the bill at the annual drivers’ dinner ahead of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, but Alpine’s Pierre Gasly<\/a> paid it.<\/p>\n

The drivers get together ahead of the season finale in Abu Dhabi for a dinner organised by seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Class of 2025. We\u2019re the only people in the world to do what we do and for that we\u2019re incredibly lucky. I\u2019m grateful for this group of drivers I have the privilege of racing against and even though we\u2019re competitors, there\u2019s nothing but respect and I\u2019m proud to call them friends. Hope to give you all a great last race of the season,” the Briton posted.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Following the dinner, the question of who picked up the bill was a hot topic in the Yas Marina Circuit paddock, with many of the drivers confirming it was Gasly who paid for the group.<\/p>\n

“Well, I tell you, last year was very nice of Valtteri [Bottas], actually, he took the bill,” Verstappen explained during Red Bull’s Talking Bull podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“So then the drivers are joking a little bit like, ‘This year it’s Max,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, sure’, but I was sitting on the opposite side of the entrance of the private room.<\/p>\n

\"Max <\/p>\n

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n

Photo by: Mark Thompson \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

“So, for most of the night you’re having a laugh, and then suddenly people were wanting to go, and then we realised that Pierre had already paid for the dinner.<\/p>\n

“I was drinking my gin and tonics on the other side,” he joked.<\/p>\n

He added: “So I guess next time, before I enter, I have to tell them that at the end of the night, the bill is for me so that I can actually finally pay it.”<\/p>\n

After host Nicola Hume joked that when it comes to Verstappen’s turn it will be tap water and a\u00a0\u00a340 set menu all round, the Dutchman responded: “No. I’m normally very generous with these kind of things. I just didn’t get to pay yet, but I’m sure that we have another dinner next year.”<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen has revealed that he was actually supposed to pick up the bill at the annual drivers’…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,195711,79010,817,813,816,825,198998,946,85,1511],"class_list":["post-366821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-barcelona-catalunya-pre-season-testing","tag-circuit-de-barcelona-catalunya","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-max-verstappen","tag-max-verstappen-explains-why-he-didnu2019t-pay-the-abu-dhabi-driversu2019-dinner-bill","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-sports","tag-trendingteam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}