Christian Horner slams Nico Rosberg after Max Verstappen disqualification demand

Daily Mirror

2 days ago

Nico Rosberg had suggested Max Verstappen should have been disqualified from the Spanish Grand Prix after the Red Bull Racing driver appeared to deliberately ram George Russell's Mercedes
Christian Horner has snapped back at "sensationalist" Nico Rosberg after the Sky Sports pundit called for Max Verstappen to be disqualified. That request came shortly after the Spanish Grand Prix which ended in acrimony after Verstappen lost his head in the latter stages.
Furious after contact with first Charles Leclerc and then Russell, the Dutchman believing the other driver had caused both, he then completely lost his temper when his Red Bull team, fearing that they were going to get a penalty for that first skirmish with Russell, asked him to cede a place to the Brit.
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Verstappen shouted furiously over the radio and then slowed down, appearing to comply despite his protests. But then, as Russell went around the outside of his Red Bull, the Dutchman appeared to deliberately turn to bang wheels with the Mercedes.
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Rosberg felt he had done it deliberately and said Verstappen should have been disqualified. The German said on Sky: "The first one, it was George's fault because he only complied with two out of those three things you have to comply with when you overtake, so Max could have stayed in front – he didn't have to give up that place.
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"But then Red Bull told him to give up the place and that then caused his blood to boil over even more. And then it looked like a very intentional retaliation – wait for the opponent and then ramming into him, just like you felt he did to you.
"And that is something that is extremely unacceptable, I think. The rules then would be a black flag, yes. If you wait for your opponent just to then ram into him, crash into him, that's a black flag."
Asked about those comments, Red Bull chief Horner wouldn't be drawn into giving a full response, but made it clear what he felt of Rosberg's punditry style. The 51-year-old said: "Nico is quite sensationalist in the way that he commentates, so I'll leave it at that."
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Verstappen's moment of madness saw him slapped with a 10-second time penalty which dropped him to 10th place in the final classification. That meant he scored just one single point while his drivers' title rivals Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris accumulated maximum points by finishing first and second respectively.
And the Dutchman is now also on the brink of a race ban. He now has 11 penalty points on his racing licence, having earned an extra three for his clash with Russell, meaning he will be forced to sit out one race if he picked up just one more point in the next two races.
Two penalty points will then expire at the end of June, but the other nine he currently has won't begin to disappear until October, meaning Verstappen will had to tread a very fine line if he is to avoid that race ban.