Horner ‘believes 100%’ Verstappen made no crash threat to Russell · RaceFans

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has given his full backing to Max Verstappen in his war of words with George Russell.

The Mercedes driver accused Verstappen of threatening to crash into him after he lost pole position to his rival due to a grid penalty in Qatar last week. Russell said Verstappen told him: “I’m going to purposefully crash into you, I’m going to put you on your fucking head in the wall.”

Verstappen is reported to have denied making the comments. Horner gave unequivocal backing to his driver.

“Max does nothing but tell the truth,” said Horner in today’s FIA press conference. “So I believe 100% what he said to be accurate.”

“Obviously he had a large amount of frustration last weekend, the way things played out in a scenario that we haven’t seen before and subsequent penalty,” Horner added. “He turned that into motivation and made a blinding start, led the race into the first corner and won the grand prix, which was the best possible response.”

Horner said does not expect the row between the two drivers will lead to another clash between the pair in this weekend’s race.

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff criticised Horner yesterday for referring Russell as being “hysterical”. Horner claimed his words were not intended as a description of the driver’s mental state.

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“I wasn’t talking about the psychology of his driver,” said Horner. “When I was referring to ‘hysterics’ I was more referring to the roasting that he gave his team when they fitted a set of hards on the car when he asked for a set of mediums and expressed his displeasure for the tyre choice that they put on the car. I’d get fined if were to use the language that was used in this press conference.”

In response to Wolff description of him as being a “yapping little terrier,” Horner said: “To be called a terrier, is that such a bad thing?

“They’re not afraid of having a go at the bigger dogs. I’d rather be a terrier than a wolf, maybe.”