Christian Horner has confirmed that Max Verstappen apologised to the Red Bull team in its Spanish Grand Prix debrief for his crash with George Russell.
The team principal of the Milton Keynes squad issued a statement on social media reflecting on a "frustrating" and "tough" weekend for the six-time F1 constructors' champions, where he included the pertinent detail.
It comes after the Dutchman released his own 'non-apology' apology earlier on Monday, where he acknowledged that it was "not right and shouldn’t have happened."
Verstappen was swiftly awarded a 10-second time penalty by the stewards' at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, as well as three penalty points on his FIA super licence.
That brings him up to a total of 11 - out of a possible 12 before a race ban - for the past 12-month period. Therefore, the four-time F1 drivers' champion must navigate both the Canadian and Austrian Grands Prix without incident, or he risks a weekend on the sidelines.
That would further damage his title aspirations, which were done significant harm by his Spanish Grand Prix penalty - after being dropped from fifth to P10 at the chequered flag, he now sits 49 points adrift of championship standings leader Oscar Piastri.
Read Horner's statement below.
Horner's statement in full
Spain closes out the triple header and we leave Barcelona frustrated that we didn’t take more from the race. As a team we attacked on the three stop which was the better strategy and it was only the safety car which had us over. We would never have been as close to Lando if it wasn’t for the three stopper.
The safety car came out at the worst possible time for our strategy, we had the choice to stay out on older tyres or take the gamble with a new set of hard tyres. Hindsight is always 20/20, but we made the best decision at the time with the information we had. The result that followed was frustrating as it was looking to be an easy podium for Max and good Championship points. Max apologised in the debrief for his incident with Russell. The SC also hurt Yuki’s race, he would’ve been very close if not in the points otherwise if you look at the trajectory he was on.
But that’s racing. It can turn in a split second. It is one of the reasons we are all so captivated and in love with this sport. It was a tough weekend, but we will busy working hard over the next weeks to make some set-up improvements to the car and come back strong in Montreal.
Also interesting:
Join RacingNews365's Ian Parkes, Sam Coop and Nick Golding, as they discuss last weekend's Spanish Grand Prix! Max Verstappen's clash with George Russell is a major talking point this week, as is whether Lewis Hamilton has started to contemplate if he is still quick enough.
Rather watch the podcast? Then click here!
Most read
In this article
Join the conversation!