Inside Christian Horner’s Max Verstappen meeting with ‘pull the radio out’ admission

Christian Horner and Max Verstappen were pictured having an animated discussion at the British Grand Prix

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has lifted the lid on his meeting with Max Verstappen at Spa after the F1 World Champion was criticised for ranting over team radio at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Verstappen started the F1 2024 season with four wins from the first five races, but has been restricted to just three victories in the last eight as Red Bull face a growing threat from McLaren and also Mercedes.

Christian Horner on Max Verstappen team radio ‘venting’

The reigning World Champion’s frustration overflowed at last weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, where he blasted the RB20 car and the team’s strategy decision en route to a distant fifth place as McLaren claimed a rare one-two finish.

After clashing with 2021 title rival Lewis Hamilton in the closing laps, Verstappen cut a frustrated figure at the end of the race, claiming that his critics could “f**k off.”

Verstappen’s behaviour drew plenty of criticism, with Mercedes driver Hamilton telling media including PlanetF1.com at Spa that the Dutchman should “act like a World Champion.”

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Verstappen was seen holding an animated yet amicable discussion with his long-serving race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, in the Belgian Grand Prix paddock as Red Bull aim to move on from the situation.

Horner has leapt to the defence of Verstappen, claiming that his “passion” is what makes the three-time World Champion so good.

And he has revealed that he chaired a clear-the-air meeting with Verstappen and Lambiase at Spa on Thursday.

He told Sky F1: “We’ve been working with Max for eight years and we know that he’s a very passionate guy and that’s part of what is his makeup that makes him as good as he is.

“When he gets frustrated then he vents at people, I’ve had that many times. I’m sure if you had a microphone on every premiership [football] player, you’d hear some venting.

“The problem now with where the sport is that there’s a microphone before they get in their car, one in the car, one when they get out of the car.

“Obviously what he was venting about is not nice to listen to, but it’s a driver that’s obviously very passionate about what he does. You know it’s a spike with him and then it comes down.

“GP and him have had a long relationship, they know each other inside out, so we sat down and we discussed it on Thursday and honestly I think it’s a blip and we move on from that.”

Put to him that Lambiase and Verstappen have been noticeably more cordial over team radio in Belgium, he added: “It’s a bit like after a bit of counselling. On Thursday [I said]: ‘OK guys, let’s go through the weekend.’

“The best way to deal with any issue is to talk about it, talk it through and GP and Max did that and I think that already we’ve turned the page, focused on this weekend to try and go into the summer break in the best possible shape.”

Horner insisted that it would have been pointless to warn Verstappen about his attitude during the race in Hungary, suggesting it would have only “inflamed” the situation.

And he stressed the importance to avoid a culture of fear within Red Bull, claiming it would be damaging to the team if individuals started making safer decisions for the fear of “getting their head bitten off.”

He said: “[During the race], there’s absolutely no point [interfering] because you’re just going to inflame it.

“Max is driving his heart out there. He’s driving with a huge amount of passion and all you’re going to do [by interfering] is inflame it.

“So I think that you just let him get it out of his system. He comes down very quickly – even by the time we got to the airport that evening, he was already totally calm.

“Every driver is different. You listen to Oscar Piastri on the radio, he doesn’t say a word. You listen to Max, you get a different experience.

“You talk about it collectively and the strategy did get a bit of a roasting.

“What you don’t want is for people to go conservative because of a fear of getting their head bitten off.

“But I think everybody in our team knows Max, we know how he responds to a situation and, honestly, it was water off a duck’s back. It’s like: ‘OK, let him have his say.’

“If we could pull the radio out, we would [have done] at that point. It’s against the rules to do that, so that’s the way it is.”

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