Max Verstappen disobeyed Red Bull orders in Brazil. The team, by radio, asked him to let pass Sergio Perez to be able to continue fighting for the runner-up with Charles Leclerc. But the current Formula 1 champion paid no attention.
A reaction that caused Pérez’s anger. After the race he told the media that if Verstappen had two World Cups he was “thanks to him”. A few words that he qualified this morning on the team’s website.
Now Christian Horner wanted to be very clear: nobody is above the team: “Verstappen It’s not bigger than the team.”
“We have spoken as a team and it is clear for Abu Dhabi. ‘Checo’ is tied with Charles and as a team we will do everything to help him. The reasons have been discussed behind closed doors,” said the Red Bull boss.
Horner makes it clear that Verstappen will help: “We work as a team and we run as a team. Our objective and our priority is to see if we can get ‘Checo’ to finish runner-up. It’s something we’ve never achieved before as a team. Max also made a commitment and we will do our best in Abu Dhabi. It’s a straight fight between ‘Checo’ and Charles and if Max can help in any way, he will.”
“It hasn’t been often this season that we let’s leave disappointed of a Grand Prix, but we left Brazil with sixth and seventh position, far from the standards we have set for ourselves this year”, he commented.
And he asks his pilots to “work as a team”: “The biggest discussion for us is our pace this weekend and we will try to solve it next week in Abu Dhabi. We work as a team and we run as a team. That is the spirit with which we have been successful this season and the one that will continue pushing us forward.”