Red Bull team principal Christian Horner is adamant the ongoing controversy surrounding the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix won’t overshadow Max Verstappen’s “very deserving” Formula 1 world championship success.
Verstappen’s last-lap pass on Lewis Hamilton saw him secure his first world title, and in doing so become Red Bull’s second world champion driver after Sebastian Vettel.
But FIA race director Michael Masi’s decision to let only a handful of lapped cars overtake under the safety car before restarting the race with one lap remaining has continued to spark outrage at how the end of the race was handled.
Aside from the events threatening to tarnish F1 and the FIA’s reputation, it has also moved to suggest Verstappen isn’t a worthy world champion, given how fortunate he was with the timing of the safety car.
But Horner insists that is not the case, believing overtime Verstappen’s season will be looked back on as one of the great campaigns of recent times.
“People in this business have very short memories,” said Horner, as quoted by Motorsport.com. “We even forgot what’s happened earlier this year as it’s been such a long racing season.
“I think that Max is absolutely the deserving world champion, when you look at the championship as a whole.
“Of course, you know, the events on Sunday have drawn an awful lot of comment. But that happens. It happens in sport.
“I think that we’ve had a lot of bad luck this year. We got fortunate with a safety car, but we made the right strategic calls. We won the race with great strategy, great teamwork, and great execution by Max.
“And time will move on. Max is a very, very deserving world champion, and we’re incredibly proud of that. And the history books will always show that he’s the 2021 world champion.”
Verstappen, who at 24 became the fourth-youngest world champion, believes past controversies throughout F1’s history prove they are “part of the sport”.
“Even the championships which have been won, like 30 years ago, they have also been sometimes a bit controversial,” Verstappen said.
“But nowadays, I guess, people, when they look back at footage like that, they actually enjoy it. So it’s just part of the sport.”
Verstappen backed the FIA’s pledge it would be investigating the events in Abu Dhabi to see if it can improve its procedures in the future.
The Dutch driver said his experience of sitting with the stewards at a Formula E race in 2019 – as punishment for his post-race behaviour at the 2018 Brazilian Grand Prix – made him understand how difficult their job can be.
“I was sometimes not agreeing to what happened in the races, but I think that’s quite normal right?” Verstappen said.
“You even have that in your relationship where sometimes you don’t agree with things.
“Throughout the whole year maybe it didn’t look like it, but I was in a very good relationship with the stewards. And when we were in there, sometimes it’s a tough call.
“I mean, I also, in 2019, I kind of got invited to spend two days with the FIA [at the stewards seminar] and spent a bit of time with the stewards as well.
“Sometimes also for them, it’s very hard to make decisions, and they have to follow the rules. So, yeah, I think it’s good at least that you can talk about it and, as a driver, when I look at myself, I also look at every single year, what can I do better?
“I think everyone should be like that every single year: to look into the year after and, and say, what can we do better?”
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