Horner reveals pre-race ‘trailer moment’ between Verstappen and Russell

Fuming over what Christian Horner called George Russell’s football “dive”, the team boss revealed Max Verstappen confronted the Mercedes driver in a “little moment” on the driver parade.

Verstappen was relegated from pole position to second on the grid for the Qatar Grand Prix after the stewards handed him an unusual one-place grid penalty for driving unnecessarily slowly on an out-lap in Saturday’s qualifying.

Christian Horner confirms ‘moment’ between Verstappen and Russell

Following the slow-moving Fernando Alonso, Verstappen was also slow on his build-up lap as too was Russell only for the Mercedes driver to nearly hit the back of the Red Bull.

Russell called it dangerous and Verstappen was summoned to see the stewards on Saturday evening where they handed him a one-place grid penalty.

Despite bouncing back to win the Grand Prix, his ninth win of the campaign, he was still fuming with Russell and told the media including PlanetF1.com: “I’ve been in that meeting room many times in my life and my career with people that I’ve raced and I’ve never seen someone trying to screw someone over that hard.

“That for me, I lost all respect [for Russell].”

But apparently that was not the first time Verstappen had let Russell know exactly what he thought of his antics during the stewards’ meeting.

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Red Bull team boss Christian Horner confirmed this, telling Sky F1: “I think there was a little bit of a moment between the two of them on the trailer as they go around the circuit or whatever earlier.

“But Max, you know with him that he felt that things just went a bit too far yesterday, and he was so motivated coming into this race, even more than usual.

“He delivered the most amazing performance. I mean, he was just like a metronome, just lap after lap whilst looking after those tyres in the high-speed corners.”

Horner went on to liken Russell’s complaints to a football player taking a “dive” to get a cheap penalty.

“I think for me, it’s a bit like a football player taking a dive in a penalty box,” he said. “I mean, if anything, you’re going to argue that George was going too fast behind, and he knew that there were two cars ahead going slower, none of them were on racing laps.

“So I’m not quite sure why we ended up with a one-place penalty. But if it gave Max any extra motivation, and certainly given it.

“These races are cut finals for us now. So, yeah, he’s wound up.”

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