Max Verstappen has sent a clear message to the Red Bull hierarchy ahead of the Australian Grand Prix, explaining that the reigning champions must ‘keep the key players’ if they are to continue achieving their current level of success. The Dutchman also believes that the company handled the Christian Horner saga ‘in the right way’.
The three-time world champion has enjoyed a sensational start to the 2024 campaign and heads to Melbourne with a 100 per cent record this season and a nine-race winning streak to his name. However, most of the conversation is still focused on the behind-the-scenes turmoil within the Red Bull camp, and not on Verstappen’s success.
After Horner was cleared of any wrongdoing following the misconduct allegations from an unnamed female Red Bull employee, the 50-year-old called on the paddock to move past the saga. However, following an appeal from the employee in question, the controversy has bubbled back to the top of the F1 discourse ahead of the Australian GP.
Offering his latest thoughts on the Horner saga, Verstappen explained: “I don’t want to always be too involved with these kinds of things. Because at the end of the day, I’m the driver and I’m here to look at the performance side of things.
“That’s what I’m hired for. But from what I know everything is handled in the right way. I’m not going into any further details from that side because I don’t know more than that. And I also don’t want to know because that’s not my job or my task within the team.”
Since news of the investigation into Horner broke at the start of February, the futures of multiple key figures have been placed into question. Helmut Marko was briefly placed under investigation by the company for an alleged role in the leaking of the team principal’s Whatsapp chats, while Pierre Wache and Adrian Newey have been linked with moves away.
With the team in danger of splitting apart, Verstappen had some advice for Red Bull. “I’m happy within the team,” he explained. “It’s very important that we try to keep the key players in the team for a longer period of time. Because that’s, of course, where the performance is as well. And at the end of the day, it’s a performance business.
“It’s the same if I wouldn’t perform, I wouldn’t be sitting here. So I know how that works. It’s my intention to be here till the end [of my contract in 2028]. Because, of course, it would be a great story for me personally also to just see it out till the end because it basically means that I’ve been part of one family and one team.”
