Verstappen’s Singapore radio glitch recalls six other F1 radio failures

At last weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix, Max Verstappen could hear race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase, but Lambiase could not hear his replies. Red Bull worked around the one-way link with yes-or-no questions: Verstappen could answer by staying silent or pressing a button, and the team also used pit boards. The issue prompted Formula1.com to revisit six earlier cases of drivers losing radio communication during a race.

Michael Schumacher lost contact with Ferrari in the rain-hit 1999 French Grand Prix and improvised with hand signals aimed at his onboard camera: the team could see him but not hear him. He finished fifth after a slow pit stop. In the rain-interrupted 2012 Malaysian Grand Prix, radio problems affected both Red Bull cars. Sebastian Vettel was relying on pit boards when he collided with Narain Karthikeyan while lapping the HRT. Red Bull tried to call Vettel in for safety reasons, but he did not hear the message and finished 11th. Mark Webber finished fourth; later he said the static had become so distracting that he pulled the radio from his helmet.

Radio trouble complicated Mercedes’ plan at the 2017 Hungarian Grand Prix. With Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen in first and second, Mercedes moved Lewis Hamilton ahead of Valtteri Bottas so he could chase them. Toto Wolff later said a crack in a fibre-optic cable had broken the team’s communications and data systems. Hamilton could not pass Räikkönen, so he returned the position to Bottas as agreed; he later said the swap could have happened sooner without the radio problem. Hamilton was 14 points behind Vettel after the race, though he would go on to win the 2017 title.

Verstappen had already faced a similar one-way radio during the 2021 French Grand Prix. In the closing stages, he could receive Gianpiero Lambiase’s messages but Red Bull could not hear him. His two-stop strategy helped him pass Hamilton with two laps remaining for the win. Verstappen later played down the radio problem because it only arose after his pit stops.

After the 2023 Hungarian Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc said radio problems had been one of his main frustrations: his engineer understood only one word in four, he said, and he said the team had encountered radio trouble in three or four races. At the 2025 Las Vegas Grand Prix, Alex Albon lost radio connection on the laps to the grid and spent much of the race without a working radio, relying on pit boards. He said a start incident left him unsure how much damage he might be carrying. Albon ultimately retired rather than risk a safety problem.