Sport

Horner defends Verstappen in Russell feud as Formula One rift escalates

Mercedes driver said world champion threatened him and that it was time someone stood up to the Dutchman’s bullying

George Russell and Max Verstappen attend a press conference at the Qatar Grand Prix. Photograph: Bryn Lennon/Getty Images
George Russell and Max Verstappen attend a press conference at the Qatar Grand Prix. Photograph: Bryn Lennon/Getty Images
Giles Richards
Fri Dec 06 2024 - 17:01

The Red Bull team principal, Christian Horner, has defended his driver Max Verstappen in the world champion’s increasingly ill-tempered feud with Mercedes’ George Russell and dismissed their very public falling out as part of an end of year “pantomime season” before this weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Verstappen has already been crowned drivers’ champion, a success overshadowed at this finale by the spat he is now embroiled in with Russell. Their altercation ramped up in Abu Dhabi when the British driver accused Verstappen of threatening to put him “on your f*****g head in the wall” and that it was time someone stood up to the Dutchman’s bullying. Verstappen has denied making the threat.

Their falling out began at the Qatar GP where Verstappen said the British driver had tried to “screw him over” in a stewards’ meeting to decide an on-track infringement between the pair and from which Verstappen was punished with a grid penalty.

The pair’s relationship has endured a series of flashpoints in the past but may have now irrevocably broken down. At the annual end of season drivers’ dinner on Thursday, Russell, apparently offered a seat next to him by Verstappen, chose instead to pointedly move the chair to sit next to his team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

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Horner defended Verstappen’s assessment of the stewards’ meeting in Qatar and his driver’s behaviour, although he did not address Russell’s claim Verstappen had threatened him.

“Max is a very straight-shooter. He tells the truth, exactly what he feels,” Horner said. “I believe 100 per cent what he said to be accurate.

“A lot has been made of it yesterday, it is pantomime season, we are getting ready for Christmas so maybe there is an element of end-of-term blues there.”

The FIA has been asked whether Russell’s claims will be investigated and whether if found to be true, Verstappen will be considered to have brought the sport into disrepute.

On Thursday the Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff, took the largely unprecedented step of joining Russell at his media call, where he described Horner – who had called Russell hysterical – as a “yapping little terrier, always something to say”.

Lewis Hamilton walks in the Mercedes paddock prior to practice at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the Yas Marina Circuit. Photograph: Joe Portlock/Getty Images
Lewis Hamilton walks in the Mercedes paddock prior to practice at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the Yas Marina Circuit. Photograph: Joe Portlock/Getty Images

Horner has a similarly fractious relationship with Wolff and chose to deliver his own put-down in reply. “Toto is quite dramatic as we all know. Toto likes to talk a lot but that is the way it is,” he said. “There is sort of a love-hate relationship where Toto loves to hate me.

“The great thing about terriers is that they are tremendously loyal. To be called a terrier, is that such a bad thing? They are not afraid of having a go at the bigger dogs. I’d rather be a terrier than a wolf maybe.”

On track in Abu Dhabi, when Formula One draws the curtain on its longest ever season, it does so with at least a sense of occasion. The meeting will not only decide the constructors’ championship, a moment of no little import to protagonists McLaren and Ferrari, but will also mark the end of an era as Hamilton bids farewell to the Mercedes team with whom he has enjoyed unparalleled success.

For McLaren, who are firmly in the diving seat, leading Ferrari by 21 points with 44 on the table to be won and with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc taking a 10-place grid penalty for fitting a new battery, it represents a potential redemption that seemed unimaginable a few scant years ago.

With Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri quickest in second practice, McLaren very much hold the whip hand at the Yas Marina circuit. They have not won a constructors’ title since 1998 when Mika Häkkinen and David Coulthard sealed it, the longest period any team has gone between constructors’ crowns.

If there were to bring it home in Abu Dhabi and it would represent a remarkable turnaround from the nadir of the mid-2010s when they finished ninth twice. To do so, among the various permutations the simplest is that a win for either Norris or Piastri would do the job, as would either driver finishing in front of both Ferraris.

Hamilton, as a former McLaren driver, will doubtless take pleasure in the team where he began his career finally returning some silverware since he last did so with the drivers’ title in 2008. Yet he would take heart from a Ferrari victory given he will be joining the Scuderia next season. For now, what he said would be an emotional weekend will mark his swansong with Mercedes.

They have enjoyed a remarkable partnership that has elevated the British driver into the pantheon of the sport. Six of his seven titles have come with Mercedes, with 84 wins, 153 podiums and 78 pole positions from 245 races, while together they have sealed eight constructors’ championships.

They are numbers that almost defy belief and have helped redraw the landscape of the sport. Michael Schumacher’s records were felt to be untouchable yet Hamilton has surpassed them in the longest and most successful partnership in F1 across 12 seasons. – Guardian