Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has confirmed he will hold behind-closed-doors talks with Max Verstappen over his criticisms of the team and colourful language during a tempestuous Hungarian Grand Prix.
The three-time F1 champion often voiced his frustration during the 70-lap race at the Hungaroring, be it about the car, situations on track, and particularly team strategy, resulting in occasionally tense exchanges with engineer Gianpiero Lambiase.
By the chequered flag, Verstappen crossed the line fifth following a lap-63 collision with old rival Lewis Hamilton in his Mercedes when battling for third position.
Remarkably, the Dutch driver’s RB20 survived a heavy impact on landing after the rear was launched into the air, and although investigated for ‘causing a collision’, the stewards opted not to take any action as neither driver was “wholly or predominantly to blame”.
Out of the car after the race, and before seeing the stewards, Verstappen continued to pull no punches, again criticising his team, whilst also telling all critics “to fuck off” for those criticisms.
“Max was frustrated, which you can understand,” explained Horner when asked whether Verstappen went over the top with his comments on the radio.
“He has a very direct line of communication with his engineer [Lambiase]. That’s something that they’ll discuss between the two of them.”
Horner was pressed further on the matter, with Verstappen’s comments raised after qualifying on Saturday where he said people within the team were not pulling in the same direction and others could not see the problems in the team.
Asked if Verstappen had gone too far, defending his team, Horner said: “Everybody sees that we need to find more performance, and everybody’s working hard to do that.
“We’ll have whatever discussions behind closed doors.”
Horner also defended Lambiase as at one stage late on, when Verstappen again made another criticism following the incident with Hamilton, it appeared as if he described the 26-year-old as “childish”.
“At that point GP wasn’t referring to Max, he was referring to others [Mercedes] on the radio complaining about a penalty,” said Horner. “So I don’t think GP’s reference at that point was in reference to Max.
“Others are obviously goading for penalties, because the stewards are listening to the radio as well.
“Look, they’ve been together for eight years, and…yeah, there are things that we could have done better in the race, but it’s something we’ll talk about as a team.”
