"This scenario could have been avoided”: Max Verstappen on Jos Verstappen-Christian Horner public spat

Max Verstappen has given his take on the entire verbal back and forth between Jos Verstappen and Christian Horner, as he's claimed it was something that could have been avoided. The Red Bull driver's team principal and father have been going back and forth all race weekend, and it all began with the latter claiming that Christian was responsible for him taking his name out of the legend's parade.

Jos Verstappen was supposed to take part in a legend's parade during the F1 Austrian GP where he was going to drive the Red Bull RB8. However, he decided to withdraw his name from the parade, citing Christian Horner as the reason behind this.

This led to a back and forth where Jos Verstappen said that he was done with Christian Horner, while Red Bull's team principal also addressed some of the comments during the team principal press conference. Max Verstappen was asked to weigh in on the situation, to which he said that something like this could have been avoided.

Claiming that he knew where his father came from in terms of his comments, Max Verstappen said during the post-sprint press conference,

“It’s not nice. I think not for myself, not for my dad, not for Christian or for the team. Because, you don’t want these things to happen. My dad has been quite clear about, you know, the reason behind it and of course, I can understand his opinion on that because at the end of the day, he gets asked to drive the car, finds out that he’s not wanted to drive the car."

He added,

“Well, my dad actually doesn’t care about driving the car. But he got asked and said ‘Please, you know, do it for the fans, Dutch fans, blah blah, Red Bull, we have a great relationship with, home track.’ So I understand. At the other end, I’m here, of course, to focus on the performance side of things. So I want a good relationship with everyone but of course, this scenario could have been avoided.”

Max Verstappen continues to keep a level head and secures pole for the Austrian GP

Away from all of this, Max Verstappen has continued to keep a calm head and performed brilliantly on track. The driver fended off the McLaren duo during the sprint and secured the win. During the Austrian GP qualifying later in the day, it was once again Max Verstappen distancing himself from the rest of the field as he comfortably secured pole position. Talking to the media after qualifying, he said,

"The qualifying went really well. We tried to adjust the car a little bit after the things that we learnt this morning, I think it worked well. Of course, the track is a bit warmer than yesterday so it made it trickier to drive, but the car felt a lot better for me today. I could really attack the corners a bit more, every run was on point and it was very enjoyable out there."

The driver has now only lost pole position three times this season, with the first being in Monaco to Charles Leclerc, the second in Canada to George Russell, and the third in Barcelona to Lando Norris.