Christian Horner snaps back at George Russell's claims about Red Bull and Max Verstappen

Red Bull boss Christian Horner has snapped back at George Russell's claims that after Max Verstappen's outburst in Hungary in 2024, a quarter of the team was sending CVs to other F1 teams. The 2024 season was a somewhat turbulent one for the Austrian team.

It started with the team principal, Christian Horner, getting investigated internally over complaints of inappropriate behavior. This was followed by Red Bull's competitiveness nosediving after Miami and seeing teams like McLaren and Ferrari closing the gap at the front.

Max Verstappen also had a severe reaction to the drop in performance in 2024 when he ended up lashing out at the team during the F1 Hungarian GP. While Verstappen would end up winning the title eventually, this outburst was something that was used by George Russell to point out how the driver struggles when things are not going well.

Max Verstappen had gone on a brutal tirade against George Russell in Qatar, and this had seen the Mercedes driver snapping back in Abu Dhabi. One of the claims from the Brit was that after Verstappen's tirade in Hungary, a quarter of the team sent CVs to rival squads, looking for a way out of Milton Keynes.

As per the Express newspaper, Christian Horner has dismissed any such claim, adding that George Russell should be more focused on other things. He said (via Planet F1):

“I’d be more worried about other issues if I was George I don’t know where he thinks and who he thinks they were offering their services to, but all the key people have made long-term commitments to the company. If you look at people like [Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase], and the key members of the engineering team, they are all on long-term contracts. One of the less pleasant sides of the business is the lengths that will be gone to try and capitalise on other issues in other teams."

He added:

"You have to remember that we came off a season where we didn’t just dominate, but we annihilated the opposition in 2023, and won 22 of 23 races. I’ve said it before, but the higher you rise, the sharper the knives, and they got pretty sharp at some points during 2024. But when there is so much at stake, other teams will use whatever tools they have to try and destabilise what has been a hugely successful team.”

What George Russell had said about Max Verstappen and Red Bull

George Russell had claimed in the lead-up to the 2024 F1 Abu Dhabi GP that the second Max Verstappen doesn't have the fastest car, he loses the plot. Citing what happened in Hungary where Verstappen crashed with Lewis Hamilton, Russell said that a quarter of Red Bull's engineering staff sent their CVs to Mercedes, McLaren and Aston Martin as they didn't want to deal with the Dutchman. He said (via BBC):

"I’m not questioning his driving abilities one single bit, but the second he does not have the fastest car, let’s take Budapest as an example, he crashes into Lewis, he slams his whole team, and he loses the plot. Straight away after that race, 25 per cent of his engineering team were sending their CVs to Mercedes, to McLaren, to Aston Martin, because they said they can’t deal with a guy like that.”

George Russell, on his part, heads into 2025 with a new teammate in the other cockpit at Mercedes as Lewis Hamilton has now left the team, making the Brit the de-facto leader.