Max Verstappen Bashes Zak Brown in Public Statement Following Adrian Newey Comments

Last year Zak Brown challenged Toto Solff to a boxing match during the Las Vegas GP. Obviously, it was all fun and jokes. But ever since McLaren has started performing well, Brown has been taking shots at other teams. The latest of which was Red Bull after Adrian Newey’s exit was confirmed. But Max Verstappen has now come out to slam Zak Brown for the same. What did he say?

Adrian Newey announced his exit from Red Bull a day before the Miami GP weekend began. The mastermind will leave Red Bull at the start of 2025 and for now will be focusing on the RB17 project. Max Verstappen and Helmut Marko are rumored to be leaving the team as well, and going to Mercedes. Seems like Jos Verstappen’s comments of Red Bull exploding if Christian Horner stays are becoming a reality.

Regardless, these are Red Bull’s internal matters and none of Zak Brown’s business. Yet, the McLaren CEO decided to step in and make comments on Red Bull after Newey’s exit. Brown suggested that Newey is just the first of many dominoes to fall at Red Bull as the resumes at Red Bull are flying around the paddock. Toto Wolff then chimed in to confirm that the resumes are indeed coming in. Max Verstappen isn’t really a fan of what Brown said, and has slammed the McLaren CEO. 

According to Motorsport, Max Verstappen took a dig at Brown as he said, “He obviously wants to stir things up. For us as a team, we can’t do anything with comments like that. From his point of view, I understand it of course, because everyone is trying to attract our people and that is completely normal in the world of Formula 1 as well. But I’m not really interested in those things either. I see the headlines, but I don’t even click on them.”

The 3X suggested that Zak Brown is just trying to stir things around and further lower the morale of Red Bull employees, as he plans to poach some of them. Regardless, Christian Horner has never been the one to sit back and decide to slam Zak Brown and Toto Wolff’s comments.

“They talk a lot”: Christian Horner’s firm stance on Zak Brown and Toto Wolff’s statement 

Christian Horner, Max Verstappen, and Red Bull received a lot of blows from fellow teams during the 2023 season as their dominance was criticized, but none of them went by without Horner giving a strong reply to it. The same attitude has been carried forward by Horner into 2024, and despite losing Adrian Newey, he suggested that Brown and Wolff just talk a lot, and should rather be focused on their problems as Red Bull poached 220 employees from Mercedes.

Christian Horner said, “You know the two candidates involved, they talk a lot. I’m not going to get sucked into a tit-for-tat but I’d be more focused on Toto’s own issues that he has. I don’t have any concern with the strength in depth.” He then added, “Mercedes, we’ve taken 220 people, 220, out of HPP [Mercedes High Performance Powertrains] into Red Bull Powertrains so when we talk about losing people I would be more worried about the 220 than one or two CVs.”

What did you make of Max Verstappen’s jab at Zak Brown? Will this cat-and-mouse story of consistently slamming other teams at any given opportunity ever stop?