Max Verstappen fires accusations at Lando Norris' boss with Red Bull pressure mounting
Max Verstappen was beaten on track fair and square by Lando Norris in Miami, and now he has taken shots at his rival's boss.
Max Verstappen has called out McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown for ‘stirring things up’ with his comments about Red Bull staff. The American executive insisted that he has received a raft of CVs from members of the reigning champions, predicting a mass exodus from Milton Keynes in response to Adrian Newey’s departure.
Despite Red Bull extending their success from 2023 to the start of the 2024 campaign, the mood behind the scenes at Milton Keynes has been a sour one. This has largely been attributed to the drama involving team principal Christian Horner, who was subject to a lengthy internal investigation before being cleared ahead of the season opener.
This drama reportedly took its toll on star engineer Newey who, after spending nearly two decades with Red Bull, decided to confirm his departure at the end of the campaign prior to the Miami Grand Prix. The news tempted Brown to stick the knife into the reigning champions ahead of a weekend that produced his team’s first win of the year.
“We have seen an increase in CVs coming our way from the team and I think Adrian is the most successful designer of all time,” Brown said after Newey’s decision to leave Red Bull was announced.
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"So in addition to the technical [quality] that he brings to the racing team, people want to work for people like Adrian and work alongside him. So I think they will be missing what he brings to the team from a pure technical point of view and then I think the leadership and the excitement people get from working with him will be missed."
These comments did not go down well with Verstappen who has no concerns over the future of key members of his team. The three-time world champion was also relaxed after first learning of Newey’s decision to leave, insisting that he told the 65-yeard-old to act in his own interests and depart if that was what he felt was necessary.
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"He obviously wants to stir things up,” he noted. “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 One as well. But I'm not really interested in those things either. I see the headlines, but I don't even click on them.