Max Verstappen reveals meaning behind ‘no risk, full push’ radio message

Max Verstappen said his ‘no risk, full push’ radio call at Monza was a playful nod to a Team Redline engineer as he controlled the race to victory

Max Verstappen delivered a commanding performance at the 2025 Italian Grand Prix after an equally dominant Saturday. With this being his third win of the season, he finished 19 seconds ahead of McLaren's Lando Norris. Following the race, he revealed the meaning behind his cryptic comment, "no risk, full push".

Starting from pole position, the Dutchman faced pressure from the McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. Demoted to second behind Norris after a contentious opening lap, Verstappen eventually reclaimed the lead and from there it was his race to play with.

Building a substantial gap between him and the McLaren duo, his win was all but inevitable. During the closing stages of the race, he radioed his engineer, Gianpiero ‘GP’ Lambiase: “No risk, full push.” Fans were dumbfounded by the comment considering his lead.

"I don't know," he said when asked about it following his Monza campaign. "It was a bit more of a joke because our engineer in sim racing with Team Redline, he always says that he's quite stressed sometimes, and when I'm in the race, he's always like 'yeah, no risk full push' so that's why I said it," Verstappen explained.

"I was all under control, the car felt nice, the tyres were fine. GP, of course, he wants to also just make sure that I'm driving without any risk, and that's what I did."

Even with a 20-second lead, Verstappen still attempted to set the fastest lap, although he wasn't able to match Norris's 1m20.901s.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

"Just two races ago in Hungary, we were happy to score even a single point," Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko told Sky Germany. "And now we’ve won here by 20 seconds. Apart from the first corner, it was a very controlled race. Max had everything under control in every phase.

"Our only concern was a potential safety car, which is why we delayed the pitstop a bit. But then Max also went for the fastest lap — you can’t take that away from him when he has a 20-second lead. That’s just Max. This feels like a rebirth for us — we’re all overjoyed."