Max Verstappen’s manager has moved to put a lid on a war of words between the 18-year-old driver and 1997 F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve.
After Villeneuve suggested that the kind of aggression the Red Bull driver showed at Spa could kill someone, Verstappen hit back by referring to an incident in 2001 when a wheel from Villeneuve’s flying car killed a marshal.
“He should watch a little with his statement that someone might die because he himself has been involved in a fatal accident,” retaliated Verstappen. He has to look at himself. What he says is not respectful to the family of the deceased marshal.”
“What Max meant is that Villeneuve should be careful talking about his [Verstappen’s] driving style and death at the same time,” manager Raymond Vermeulen told the German newspaper Bild.
“I can only agree with Max and say it is disrespectful to the family of the marshal.”
Vermeulen, who in conjunction with Max’s father Jos looks after the teenager’s career, said it is also important that Verstappen respects Villeneuve and his accomplishments.
“But we know that Villeneuve is not a fan of Max and doesn’t assess him positively. We can live with that,” he said. But the kind of accusations that he is doing now are very unfortunate,” added Vermeulen.
Villenueve explained, “I made logical comments about what happened on the racetrack, and that’s now gone beyond, is inappropriate and lacks respect to the family [of the Australian GP marshal, Graham Beveridge].”
“There’s nothing more to say on the subject, there’s no feud to start. It’s just ridiculous. Obviously someone (Jos) is telling him what to say and what to think, and if it’s the same person who is telling him how to drive and how to act on the racetrack, then it is very worrying for someone,” insisted Villeneuve.
Verstappen also tried to diffuse the impact of the comments he made, “To be clear, I said that it was disrespectful to the families to talk about deaths, and I was referring to the incident that happened in 2001.”
“But they didn’t write down that I was picking up on the family, that it was disrespectful from his side to comment about deaths.”
“I didn’t say death by driving. I said it was a deadly accident. In the end it was a wheel, it’s still from a car isn’t it?” added Verstappen.
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