Christian Horner details what Max Verstappen did after George Russell incident

Daily Mirror

2 days ago

Max Verstappen was involved in an extraordinary crash with George Russell late in the Spanish Grand Prix, only publicly admitting the following day that he had been in the wrong
Christian Horner has said that Max Verstappen apologised to Red Bull colleagues for his clash with George Russell at the Spanish Grand Prix. The drama unfolded at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, where Verstappen seemed to deliberately barge into Russell's Mercedes in the dying stages of the race.
After Charles Leclerc overtook the four-time Formula 1 champion, dropping him to fourth place following a late safety car, Verstappen was also barged into by Russell. He went off track and rejoined ahead of the Mercedes, furious at the contact.
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And his mood only worsened when his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase told him to give up the spot. Red Bull feared he was going to get a penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, which led to an angry response from the driver.
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Although he initially looked like he was backing down, Verstappen then shockingly veered into Russell in what seemed like a deliberate move. The incident drew fierce backlash and resulted in Verstappen being slapped with three penalty points and a 10-second time penalty.
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It sent Verstappen tumbling from podium contention to 10th place, dealing a heavy blow to his and Red Bull's title hopes. Championship leader Oscar Piastri won the race while Lando Norris was second behind him in the other McLaren.
While Verstappen refrained from making a public apology post-race, he did acknowledge on social media that the incident "should not have happened". And team principal Horner, reflecting on the weekend in a social media post, said Verstappen had at least said sorry to his colleagues after the race.
"Spain concludes the triple-header, and we depart Barcelona feeling frustrated that we didn't extract more from the race," Horner posted on Instagram. "As a team, we opted for the three-stop strategy, which was the superior approach, and it was only the safety car that caught us out. We wouldn't have been as close to Lando without the three-stopper.
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"The safety car emerged at the most inconvenient moment for our strategy; we had to decide whether to stay out on older tyres or risk it with a new set of hard tyres. Hindsight is always perfect, but we made the best decision at the time based on the information we had.
"The outcome was frustrating as it seemed like an easy podium for Max and valuable championship points were within reach. Max apologised in the debrief for his incident with Russell. The safety car also impacted Yuki's race. He would've been very close, if not in the points; otherwise, if you consider the trajectory he was on.
"But that's motor racing. It can change in an instant. It's one of the reasons why we are all so enthralled and enamoured with this sport. It was a challenging weekend, but we will be diligently working over the next weeks to make some set-up enhancements to the car and bounce back strong in Montreal."