Max Verstappen Humiliates Zak Brown’s Request to FIA as Christian Horner and Co. Face Repeated Taunts From American

Red Bull and McLaren’s war of words is only getting spicier. After Max Verstappen’s Austrian GP collision with Lando Norris that forced the McLaren driver to DNF, tensions ran high in the paddock. More animated than the drivers were the Team Principals of both teams. McLaren CEO Zak Brown also intervened. He blamed Verstappen for ‘taking out’ Norris from the race and hit out at Christian Horner for blaming Norris’ “overambitious” overtaking. When Verstappen was questioned about one particular facet of Brown’s argument, he retorted savagely.

Ahead of the British GP, the Verstappen-Norris crash was the talk of F1 town. Andrea Stella, using Verstappen’s 2021 aggressiveness against Lewis Hamilton as reasoning for a severe punishment, also came up in press conferences. While most drivers agreed that the collision was only a product of hard racing, Zak Brown couldn’t. Because the Red Bull driver wasn’t penalized for weaving under braking in Austria, the American insisted that the FIA needed full-time stewards to ensure consistency in enforcing regulations.

Amid this fiery back-and-forth, Norris out-qualified the reigning world champion for P3. In a post-qualifying interview, their Austrian GP incident was recalled once again. Verstappen was questioned if that topic was brought up in the drivers’ meeting on Friday. “No, we didn’t discuss it all,” he told Pitdebrief. When goaded with Brown’s full-time steward suggestion, the Dutchman hilariously put an end to the conversation. “Who is Zak Brown?” he questioned, ending the interview there and then.

It looks like Verstappen has had enough of the unwarranted questioning over his race-craft. In another interview, he even exposed the English media for siding with Norris, the Briton, in their battle and tarnishing the Dutchman’s image.

Max Verstappen hits back at F1’s English-occupied press and its one-sided criticism

Silverstone was where F1’s first championship took place in 1950. Though Italian manufacturers dominated the early years, Great Britain made substantial inroads into the sport and has produced some of the world’s best drivers and teams. Max Verstappen highlighted how even the F1 media is over 80% Englishmen and exposed their bias.

“80 to 85 percent of the press in F1 is English, so you have quite a dominant force with that,” Verstappen told the Daily Mail. “In the back of their minds, most would prefer their national driver to do well or, in the case of an incident, naturally pick the side of their countryman. Ex-drivers, most of them are British, so it’s a bit of a one-sided affair,” he concluded.

Though Verstappen has an 81-point lead in the championship, it seems as if McLaren is still in the mix. With Mercedes back to fighting for wins, Norris in P3, and the 3-time champion only managing P4 in qualifying in Silverstone, the British GP might just witness 2024’s most exciting battle. Unless another collision ensues, that is.