Christian Horner reveals ‘f**king’ hilarious origin of Max Verstappen team radio karaoke

Breaking out into the ‘Green Green Grass of Home’ after his Brazilian Grand Prix, Christian Horner says he has no “****ing idea” why a Tom Jones song would be one of Max Verstappen’s favourites.

It could, though, be something about the nostalgia.

Verstappen won the Brazilian Grand Prix, his record-breaking 17th win for this season, after which Red Bull started playing Jones’ ‘Green Green Grass Of Home’ over his radio on his cooldown lap.

‘Tom Jones for f***’s sake!’

The Dutchman initially tried to fob it off, telling his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase he’s “not a good singer, I like to listen”, but as the track started playing he sang along.

Horner explained why out of every song in the world, Red Bull went with that one.

“We learned today something else about Max today,” said Horner. “Apparently when he used to head back from the kart race his father used to play Tom Jones tracks over and over again.

“So I managed to put on the Tom Jones’ ‘Green Green Grass’. I didn’t know whether they’d play at all. Radio Red Bull and he was singing along primarily.”

But why Tom Jones?

“I’ve got no ****ing idea why a 26-year-old, why ‘Green Green Grass’ would be… it was the most unlikely song I thought,” Horner said laughing.

“But Jos told me in Qatar… what’s his favourite song, maybe Paul [Monaghan] can play it? And he went ‘Green Green Grass’ by Tom Jones. So I was ‘can you play ‘Green Green Grass’ by Tom Jones?’ And he [Paul] was like ‘what the ****?’

“I was thinking obviously after the Spice Girls I’m thinking he would be totally into you know, ****ing Ed Sheeran or somebody you know the contemporary of his age range but Tom Jones? Tom Jones for **** sake!”

Not Red Bull’s first rendition of ‘Green Green Grass of Home’

Sky Sports’ Ted Kravitz also touched on the choice of song, revealing this wasn’t the first time Red Bull had belted it out in celebration.

“This is, so Red Bull tell me, the favourite song of Jos Verstappen and a young Max when they were in the car going to and from their karting destinations in Italy,” he said.

“So Max sort of grew up on go karting in Italy, and when they were driving from the Netherlands down to Lonato, or one of the kart tracks in Italy, one of Jos’ favourite favourite songs was the Tom Jones version of ‘Green Green Grass of Home’.

“And when Max won the championship in Qatar, in the middle of the celebrations Jos insisted that they start singing the ‘Green Green Grass of Home’. So that’s where that came.

“In fact, I believe when they were celebrating the Constructors’ Championship in Japan, there might have been some homespun karaoke as to a ‘Green Green Grass of Home’.

“So yeah, that’ll be that’s why it was because they used to play it on the old car radio, or tape machine. So that’s why Christian plumbed it in somehow to the radio system.”

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