Horner: ‘I’ve never heard Hamilton recognize Verstappen’s abilities’

Max Verstappen is heading towards his second consecutive title of Formula One career this year – thanks to both Ferrari and Mercedes’ troubles this year – with much less stress than last year when he was battling with Lewis Hamilton who was in the crosshairs of the controversial decisions of the then FIA race director Michael Massi at the Abu Dhabi GP.

The tension of the past year reached its peak not only in the season finale, but also earlier in the duels between the two title contenders at Silverstone and Monza. At the British circuit in particular, their clash culminated in Verstappen’s 51G power collision at Copse’s turning barriers and tension escalated, both in public statements from both sides.

Today, nine months after the 2021 championship ended, Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner said this year’s battle between Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc involves a lot more respect between the two drivers than last year’s Lewis Hamilton.

“You know, there’s a difference, there’s a little bit of a different respect with Charles.”said the Brit. “As kids they were rivals in the race and there was a mutual respect. I’ve never heard Lewis acknowledge Max’s abilities. There was also a bit of fuel for the fire between them and you could feel that between them.”

Horner said after the incident at Silverstone last year that Hamilton “Ride like an amateur” and accused the Brit of celebrating his victory there while Verstappen was in hospital. He has now admitted that Hamilton deserves everyone’s full respect for what he has achieved in Formula One – but added that last year’s struggle had both a psychological and racing impact on Hamilton.

“I think that’s how it happened, maybe more in Lewis’ head. Because he’s the seven-time world champion with everything to lose, Max is the new risk-taking driver who gives everything he has and has nothing to lose .” Some of his passes over the last year have been stunning and you could tell Lewis was getting irritated.” Horner continued.

“We saw after Lewis took pole at Silverstone that he was ‘broken’ when Max won the sprint race. If Max had gone through Copse corner I don’t think they would ever have seen him again.” in the afternoon so there was also a hint of desperation in the air, the stakes were high and emotions were running high, but maybe it hit Lewis harder than Max because he had more to lose, Max just had something to win.” added the Brit.

Shortly after last year’s championship ended, Hamilton said on new Netflix documentary Drive to Survive that Verstappen was “aggressive as hell” when driving, saying that like many drivers he’s met in his career, he’s tried, to harass him on the track.

Alongside the two drivers, Horner also explained what went on between himself and Mercedes F1 Director Toto Wolff behind the scenes of the Silverstone race. “There was suddenly an endless dialogue between Toto and Michael (Massey). Then he (Wolf) emailed him and (Massey) replied. And then I thought ‘ok, I’m not going to like this’, I’m going to intervene.

It was incredibly one sided that no team manager could step in and influence the GM and mid game I had a very tense conversation with Toto. In that race, with Toto pushing his view that his driver should not be penalized, I had a driver in hospital and the car out of the race and obviously I was very disappointed with what happened.”

And then he spoke about the events of Abu Dhabi, Horner concluded: “I can imagine that it was pushed to the limit in Abu Dhabi, where Toto tried at several points in the race to prevent the safety car from coming out in order not to change the course of the race. From the moment I heard it, my first reaction was to make sure offense is the best defense, because the last person to whisper into someone else’s ear has the greatest impact.

I think the crucial element was (Nicolas) Latifi’s accident and the immediate exit of the safety vehicle with the priority of restarting the race. The only mistake made was not allowing the last two cars to overtake and get onto the lap. But that wouldn’t have made the slightest difference, the result would have been identical to what was produced.”