At the Madring you don’t pass, Verstappen snaps: “What the f**k kind of Mickey Mouse race is this”

Chaotic start

From the Spanish GP weekend we have one certainty: Max Verstappen is not a fan of the new Madring track. After criticizing the newly born Spanish track in the free practice sessions, the Red Bull Dutchman went even harder in the race, especially during the first laps.

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Verstappen in the chaos of turn 1 cut the first chicane to avoid a possible contact with Lewis Hamilton but then refused to let the Englishman pass, until the pit wall gave the peremptory instruction to let Ferrari #44 through to avoid a possible penalty.

However, at that point Hamilton was no longer immediately behind Verstappen, but had slipped further back, overtaken also by Antonelli’s Mercedes. Moreover, the Englishman was starting to have brake problems and so Verstappen, to let the seven-time world champion pass, had to almost stop in the middle of the track to wait for him.

No passing

When he then found himself behind Hamilton, Verstappen had great difficulty in immediately overtaking him again, because the Ferrari driver was moving slowly due to brake problems. The characteristics of the track – narrow, twisty and almost devoid of overtaking points – made it extremely difficult for Red Bull’s #3 to get out of the ‘train’ that Hamilton was unintentionally creating with his reduced pace.

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So the four-time world champion opened up on the radio and vented all his frustration towards the newborn Iberian track with a team radio that has already become iconic: “F*cking Mickey Mouse racing, this is“; more or less literally translatable as “what the f**k kind of Mickey Mouse race is this”!”.

At the end of the race, however, Verstappen ironically had the chance to thank the characteristics of the Madring: precisely the impossibility of overtaking on this track in fact allowed him to keep behind in the last laps a Lando Norris decidedly faster than him: “I just had to put the car in the middle of the track“, joked the Dutchman. The ‘Mickey Mouse track’ takes away, the ‘Mickey Mouse track’ gives back.

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