Can't wait for Sunday. Horner did an interview with "the times" the other day which is his first since last Sunday. Peep the way those shameless RB fukks are trying to change the narrative. It's behind a pay wall so I'll paste it here....
Christian Horner insists he is the principal of a Red Bull team with principles; a team that, should they clinch the most exciting Formula One World Championship in decades in Abu Dhabi this weekend, will do it fairly. And they will do it, Horner says perhaps rather provocatively, because they have the best driver, if not necessarily the best car.
Questions, Horner accepts, are being asked, fuelled not just by the fact that Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton go into the final race of the season level on points but by the events of last weekend. In Jeddah there was a view that Verstappen had taken his rivalry with Hamilton too far; that he was prepared even to risk an accident in the pursuit of victory. On the race radio Hamilton described the 24-year-old Dutchman as crazy.
In the end, Hamiltonâs car survived a collision with Verstappenâs and the Briton took the win, leaving Verstappen to settle for second place and two penalty points on his licence.
In his first interview since Sundayâs drama, Horner is keen to allay fears that Verstappen would do anything underhand to secure a first world title against Hamilton, who is chasing a record eighth.
If both drivers failed to finish, Verstappen would be champion as he has won more races. Could there not be a temptation to simply turn into Hamilton, knowing that the Red Bull car is struggling to match the Mercedes and its new âspicy engineâ for straight-line speed? âMax wants to win this championship on the track,â Horner, 48, says. âItâs as simple as that. Heâs a hard racer but a fair racer,

and I expect no different this weekend. Nobody wants to win this championship in a gravel trap or in a stewardsâ inquiry.
âMax has been totally consistent from race one. Heâll go wheel to wheel with any driver. He drives with his heart on his sleeve. Look at his restart. Look at some of his passes this year. He has shown enormous bravery and commitment. That is the kind of driver that he is. Thatâs why we love him. Thatâs why he has the following that he does in the sport. Thatâs why in an independent survey he was voted the most popular driver, the most exciting driver in Formula One. Without that approach, without that DNA, Max Verstappen wouldnât be the driver that he is today. His instinct is to go for it; always has been and hopefully always will be.â
It nevertheless feels necessary to labour the point. Has he felt the need to talk to Verstappen; to make sure he intends to play by the rules?
âWeâve already had numerous discussions about it,â Horner says. âTo finish first, first youâve got to finish. Thatâs been our mantra throughout this season.

Remember, it wasnât Max who crashed into Lewis at Silverstone. The stewards found Lewis guilty of driving into Max. Theyâve both had their moments this year. Inevitably the reverse was found at Monza. Theyâve been hard races. Theyâve gone wheel to wheel. But I think, for all the fans, you want to see a fair and clean fight in this last round and may the best team and best driver win.â
Clearly, Horner feels compelled to defend Verstappen. Not least against the accusation levelled at him by Hamilton. âHeâs certainly not crazy,â Horner says. âYouâve got two guys, different ages, going for the biggest prize in motorsport. Lewis is 36 and going for his eighth world title. Max is attempting to win his first. And I think Lewis has an enormous amount of experience; he is using all of that. Heâs a wily competitor.
âItâs frustrating. Thereâs been some confusion. Some incidents get punished, some go unpunished. Max does tend to get the harsher verdict,

particularly when you look back at the weekend.â
Hornerâs view of the moment the two rivals collided in Saudi Arabia is different from that of Hamilton, who accused Verstappen of causing the collision by braking with dangerous force. âObviously there were several incidents in the race on Sunday,â Horner says. âI guess the one you are referring to is where Lewis drove up the back of Max. I think there was gamesmanship going on where Max had clearly lifted off and had gone down through the gears, to [a speed] slower than the slowest corner of the circuit, yet Lewis didnât want to overtake, because he didnât want to be the first to cross the DRS line [which would have allowed Verstappen to take the lead again]. So he was desperately trying to avoid overtaking Max, who had been instructed to let him pass by the stewards, or by the race director and therefore by the team.
âThere is effectively gamesmanship going on between the two of them, because for the first time probably this season Lewis didnât want to overtake Max.â
The rivalry is intense on and off the track. Horner is in charge of a team that once dominated with four consecutive World Championships but he compares Red Bullâs battle with Mercedes to David and Goliath. He talks about the Mercedes âmachineâ, with its corporate backing and huge resources. âThey have more people in marketing and communications than we have mechanics,â he says. âIt will be by far the biggest achievement of this team if we manage to pull this off.â He points to that new Mercedes engine, and a rear wing that has been under scrutiny, and accepts that in a straight line the German car is faster.
That is why he has such admiration for Verstappen; for making a race of it this season. âYou canât deny anything Lewis has achieved,â he says. âHeâs one of the absolute greats and statistically the most successful in history. But you put Max and Lewis in that [Mercedes] car, and I have no doubt who would come out on top. Put Lewis in our car, and I also have no doubt who would come out on top.
âWith Max anything is possible. We didnât expect to be competitive in Jeddah. Thatâs mainly down to Max. I donât think enough credit has been given to him, the way he has driven.
âWe often see very little difference between Valtteri [Bottas] and Lewis; same with Nico [Rosberg].

Max has wrung every ounce of performance out of this car this year. And since the summer and Mercedesâs upturn in speed, it has been Max who has kept us in this championship; the way he has driven. Heâs been absolutely outstanding. Sometimes that gets overlooked, what he is able to achieve in a car with less horsepower and less performance than his rival.â
Sebastian Vettel, Horner says, is a marvellous driver, having clinched those four world titles for Red Bull. Verstappen, however, is at a different level. âI have no doubt heâs the best we have seen on one of our cars, in terms of outright raw ability and commitment,â he says. âHeâs the best driver weâve seen. Sebastian was also incredibly good, but we gave him a better car.
âThe stand-out moments for me come when you turn up somewhere like Jeddah. Nobody has seen the circuit before. Max goes out and is 2½ seconds clear of anybody else. It takes half an hour for anyone to get close to his time. Heâs got a fundamental, natural ability which means heâs driving with less effort at the limit than other drivers. Heâs not under stress himself. He can be driving flat out but still has the ability to process what is going on in the race, with the car, with his opponents. Very rarely do you see drivers with that. Lewis has that. Max has that. Sebastian, when he was winning those world championships, had that.
âWhat Max also has, that I havenât seen in many drivers other than when I was growing up watching Nigel Mansell, is a massive heart. He drives with his heart. He gives it absolutely everything.â
Horner also likes him. âAfter a race he just wants to get back on his Fifa game with his mates,â he says. âHe hasnât become some kind of diva. Money has obviously become a factor in his life but he still has the same principles.â
With that, the man who runs Red Bull slipped into the Abu Dhabi afternoon and returned to planning strategy for what could be a race for the ages.