“It Was Lando’s Fault”: Christian Horner Pins $66400 Blame on Norris as Max Verstappen Collects Broken Pieces of Achievement

Finally, after 5 long months of rotting in the midfield, McLaren got the MCL60 up to podium standards. And once they did so, Lando Norris was quick to exploit the new upgrades and get two consecutive podiums. On the Silverstone podium, Norris showed everyone a unique, eye-catching champagne pop technique. And all went well there. But when he replicated the same celebration on the Hungary podium, he broke Max Verstappen‘s P1 trophy. And RB Boss Christian Horner plans to get the McLaren talisman to reimburse the cost of the trophy.

In the post-race interviews, Norris seemed the least bothered about breaking Verstappen’s trophy. He said, “Max just placed [his trophy] too close to the edge. It fell over, I guess. Not my problem. It’s his!” Verstappen too was not quite bothered. He happily took the broken trophy in his hands, as he couldn’t help but laugh at the situation. But now that Horner knows that the trophy costs $66400 (€66000), he intends to send the bill to Lando Norris.

On the F1 Nation podcast, Horner said, “It was firmly Lando’s fault that knocked it over apparently, and I just heard it’s about 60,000 euros worth of damage that he’s done so uh, and it took six months to make. I should send him the bill, it’s only fair since he knocked it over.“

Read More: Eager to Get the Monkey Off His Back, Lando Norris Fires a Stern Warning to Rivals With Audacious Prediction

While all this banter goes on, one has to wonder if Verstappen and Co. will get a new trophy or not. And the CEO of the trophy manufacturing company has cleared the air over the topic.

Herend Porcelain CEO Promises to Cover Lando Norris’ Mistake and Get Max Verstappen a New Trophy

The Hungarian podium trophies were made by Herend Porcelain Manufactory. The company’s origins date back to 1826 and they specialize in luxury hand-painted porcelain. As per the company’s CEO Attila Simon, the trophy that Norris broke took nearly 6 months to make, with over 30 people working their magic on the work of art.

And while celebrating his P2 after the Hungarian GP, that is the amount of damage that Norris did. But Simon said that their artists have begun the work of making a replacement trophy for Red Bull. “We are ready to react, no worries,” said Simon. “We now have the joyful, but also heavy burden of making another trophy.”

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On one hand, the Papaya army and McLaren are happy that Norris is quick enough to get podiums. On the other hand, they can only hope that his champagne celebrations don’t cost them much (in terms of finance and their PR team having to work overtime).