Ex-Formula 1 driver David Coulthard has revealed that reigning World Champion Max Verstappen purposely gave him a “little scare”, whilst entering the pits at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Verstappen claimed victory at the Red Bull Ring to eclipse Ayrton Senna’s 41 career wins, with the Dutchman’s win at the team’s home race having been his 42nd in F1.
On that day in Spielberg, Coulthard carried out the post-race interviews in parc fermé, something which saw him go down to the pitlane towards the end of the race.
Coulthard waited for the race to end just outside Red Bull’s garage, when he noticed that Verstappen was entering for a pit-stop.
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The Scot opted to film Verstappen’s pit-stop because he was so close to the action; however, he was almost run over by the Dutch driver.
Despite Coulthard having tried to move back, Verstappen almost ran over his feet, something it turns out the two-time World Champion did on purpose to jokingly frighten the ex-F1 driver, who he travelled home with.
“I went down into the top-three driver interviews so I was standing just before the Red Bull garage in the pit lane with my back to the FIA garage door,” Coulthard told Eddie Jordan on the Formula For Success podcast.
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“And I’m standing there with a camera man that will film the top-three interviews. And it’s traditional, you go there and you’re in place ready for when the race finishes. And I see Max is coming down the pit lane so I take my phone out.
“I thought I’d take a wee video of a pitstop for my son, you know, it’d be a nice little thing. He was watching in the pits, and Max came past and I’ll show you the video. He went past about half a metre away from my feet.
“I couldn’t go any farther back and he pulls into the pit box. I filmed it and I thought, ‘God, that was a bit on the edge.’
“I was flying back with Max to the south of France, back to Monaco. He comes in and goes, ‘Did you like how close I got to you in the pit lane?’ And I went, ‘You knew it was me?’ He went, ‘Yeah, I didn’t need to go that close. I just wanted to give you a little scare.'”