Red Bull’s Horner Justifies Max Verstappen’s Controversial Portimao Radio Outburst

Max Verstappen was the talking point after yesterday’s FP2 session in Portugal when he collided with Lance Stroll. The Dutchman had an outburst and ended up blasting the Racing Point driver with some cuss words on his team radio, for which Max eventually felt the heat from the fans.

However, Red Bull’s team principal, Christian Horner, defended Max and commented that it was solely an “emotional” reaction to the incident. “I think emotion gets in there. He’s that kind of a character,” he said.

“His expectation was very different to the outcome,” Horner said.

“What you have to remember, these drivers, there’s stuff going on with them through the session.

“Some drivers work together and some drivers don’t. And sometimes if Max is coming up behind Lance or Ocon it can be colorful,” he added.

Horner hinted at Max’s bad luck with a pink car around. Back in 2018, Esteban Ocon, who was driving for Racing Point, crashed into the race leader, Max, while trying to unlap himself at the Brazilian Grand Prix. The incident left Max spinning, and he ended up losing his lead to Lewis Hamilton.

Later, after the race, Max even stormed towards the Frenchman and had a heated argument before leaving for the podium ceremony.

Max Verstappen not worried about the consequences of using derogatory words

Max was heard using words like m***ol and re*a*d against Stroll.

After the FP2 session, Max mentioned that he was not worried that someone might object to his choice of words. “Not my problem,” he said.

The two drivers crashed into each other while going into turn 1. Max assumed Stroll had ended his flying lap and used the slipstream from the Racing Point to move alongside him.

However, Stroll was on his second flying lap and ended up squeezing Max through turn 1. Max, having nowhere to go, collided with the Canadian. This left the latter spinning onto the gravel and eventually out of the session entirely. Max limped back into the pits with some barge board damage.

Later, Stroll revealed that the two had a conversation and cleared the misunderstanding between them. “The incident with Max was unfortunate. We’ve spoken and cleared the air, though,” Stroll said.

“I don’t think Max was expecting me to go for a second push lap. And likewise, I wasn’t expecting anyone to be alongside me into turn 1.” This is not the only occasion where Max had such outbursts as one could hear the Dutchman using such words in almost all of the race weekends.

But such attitudes do not deny the fact that Max is an incredible driver. Evidently, he looks confident to take his fight to the Silver Arrows in qualifying and later in the race tomorrow. Hence, a race win for the Red Bull driver is on cards at the Portuguese Grand Prix.