{"id":575607,"date":"2026-03-31T04:41:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/575607\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:41:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:41:17","slug":"max-verstappen-f1-misery-deepens-as-gianpiero-lambiase-advice-falls-flat-mate-this-doesnt-really-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/575607\/","title":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen F1 misery deepens as Gianpiero Lambiase advice falls flat: ‘Mate, this doesn’t really help’"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Max Verstappen<\/a>, even his F1 ally and race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase couldn’t buck up his spirits in 2026. <\/p>\n

\nThe four-time champion once again had a difficult weekend at the Japanese Grand Prix<\/a>, where he only managed to finish eighth and behind the Alpine of Pierre Gasly. <\/p>\n

\nRed Bull is facing serious challenges with their RB22, having to contend with balance issues in China while the car at Suzuka showed fundamental problems that hadn’t been resolved, despite unveiling upgrades. <\/p>\n

Article continues under video<\/p>\n

\nDuring Sunday’s race, Verstappen engaged in a fierce duel with Pierre Gasly in the latter stages of the grand prix<\/a>, but his former team-mate managed to hold the Dutchman at bay. Although Verstappen was right on the Alpine\u2019s tail, attempting an overtake proved fruitless as he repeatedly lost momentum on the straight. <\/p>\n

\nF1 HEADLINES: Verstappen at breaking point as journalists demand FIA action<\/a> <\/p>\n

Lambiase tries to buck up Verstappen<\/p>\n

\nLambiase tried to inject some motivation during the race, noting that midway through, Verstappen had set faster lap times than Oscar Piastri, Lewis Hamilton<\/a>, Charles Leclerc<\/a>, and George Russell<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\nVerstappen was unimpressed however, remarking, “Well, Alpine is incredibly fast anyway.” <\/p>\n

\nLambiase tried to maintain a positive outlook and responded: “I believe you\u2019re two or three tenths of a second ahead, though I get that it\u2019s hard to close the gap.” <\/p>\n

\nVerstappen wasn\u2019t convinced, and replied: “That’s a bit easy from the pit wall. Mate, this doesn’t really help.” <\/p>\n

\nF1 RESULTS: Japanese GP times & positions<\/a><\/p>\n

Related\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Max Verstappen, even his F1 ally and race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase couldn’t buck up his spirits in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,16406,44,918,11525,85],"class_list":["post-575607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-japanese-grand-prix","tag-news","tag-red-bull","tag-sheona-mountford","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575607","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=575607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}