Horner Boldly Charges Mercedes With Ignorance at Abu Dhabi & Diminishing Max Verstappen’s F1 Title Glory

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is over about three months ago, but the sport can’t get over it. The much controversial UAE event is still making headlines. Red Bull Racing’s boss Christian Horner has now freshly accused Mercedes of playing ‘underhand’ tactics over the Abu Dhabi GP; tactics that he claims watered down the crown Max Verstappen earned.

Max Verstappen has defeated Lewis Hamilton to take home his maiden F1 Championship. However, the German team couldn’t take up the loss and put their petition against the race results to the FIA. From there on, there has been a constant war of words between Red Bull and Mercedes.

Reflecting on the aftermath of Verstappen’s title, Horner conveyed, “I felt what was going on behind the scenes over the Christmas period was a bit underhand. The pressure that was put on the FIA, the positioning, the pressure that was put on the race director, to try to discredit what we had achieved.”

“He was always going to be massively exposed by the team electing to leave him out despite the fact he was questioning that call. The smokescreen was placed on the race director rather than the mistake Mercedes made strategically”, the 48-year-old boss further stated.

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The finale to Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton’s epic season

Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen were the championship protagonists last year. Both the drivers were tied with unbelievable equal 369.5 championship points before they raced in Abu Dhabi GP. Max held the Saturday’s pole before going into Sunday’s race.

As the race started, Hamilton overtook Verstappen and continued the lead till Nicholas Latifi of Williams crashed. The crash resulted in Michael Masi, the race director calling up the safety car. While the safety car was on, Max pitted and changed his tires. Before the race restarted, Masi directed the lapped cars to unlap which brought Max right behind Lewis.

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As the race restarted, Verstappen made a late lunge into the fifth corner to speed past Hamilton and eventually won the championship. This decision by Masi created a lot of controversies. Mercedes submitted their pleas immediately to the FIA. In the commission meeting in February, the governing body sacked Masi as race director, however, allowed Max Verstappen to keep the title.