Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has stated he is hopeful Max Verstappen will have a “reasonable” reception at the British Grand Prix.
F1 travels to the Silverstone Circuit this weekend for the 12th round of the 2024 Formula 1 world championship.
The event follows the controversial end to the Austrian Grand Prix which saw Verstappen and McLaren’s Lando Norris collide as they battled for the lead last Sunday.
Norris was forced to retire from the race while Verstappen was classified in fifth place to further extend his championship lead.
With the fans at Silverstone likely set to turn out in force to support their home driver in Norris, Horner suggested Verstappen will be unmoved by any hostile reaction at the event.
“I’m sure it’s going to be a partisan crowd for the British drivers as it is for Max in Holland, but I think whenever we go to those tracks there is always respect for the other drivers,” Horner told Sky Sports News.
“I hope Max gets a reasonable reception and I’m sure it’s going to be all orange again this weekend – perhaps not Max Verstappen fans, more McLaren fans.
“That’ll be water off a duck’s back to him, he’ll have his head down and he won’t change. He’s the racer he is and I’m sure he’ll race just as hard this weekend.”
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Horner: Verstappen-Norris relationship was building to ‘spill over’
Verstappen and Norris have gone wheel-to-wheel on several occasions this year with McLaren closing the gap to Red Bull in recent months.
However, the incident in Austria marked the first blow-point for the duo, who are known to share a strong friendship off the track.
Horner believes it was only a matter of time before their on-track relationship boiled over into an incident.
“There’s an element, I think, of Lando learning how to race Max and they’re discovering that,” Horner said.
“Inevitably, there is going to be more close racing between the two of them as the cars look so close over the forthcoming races.
“The conflict between the two of them has been building over two, three, four races where they’ve been racing each other closely and hard, and at some point that was always going to spill over – and it did at Turn 3.”