Christian Horner fires dig at Andrea Stella: ‘Not a position he’s been in before’

Christian Horner has responded to Andrea Stella’s criticism of Max Verstappen following the Austrian Grand Prix, citing “high emotions” as the reason for the McLaren F1 boss’ comments.

Red Bull and McLaren saw their lead drivers collide on Lap 64 of the Austrian GP.

Verstappen veered slightly left in the braking zone at Turn 3 resulting in contact, with the pair picking up punctures.

While Verstappen was handed a 10-second time penalty for his role in the incident, he still extended his lead in the championship as Norris was forced to retire.

The incident left Stella frustrated, stating that Verstappen’s aggressive driving was due to him not being punished correctly in 2021 against Lewis Hamilton.

Speaking to Sky Sports after FP1 at Silverstone, Horner was asked about Stella’s comments and seemingly fired a dig at the Italian.

“I haven’t heard all of what he said,” Horner said. “The stewards have a job to do. They award penalties when they feel someone’s committed something wrong.

“They felt that Max had obviously moved so gave him a 10-second penalty. Obviously there’s always a lot of emotion running high after the race.

“I can only imagine it’s not a position Andrea has been in before so maybe there were some high emotions running.”

Horner's stance on the incident itself remains unchanged, describing it as “hard racing between the two of them”.

“Not really. It’s hard racing between the two of them,” he added. “I think you can see the two of them have spoken about it. It’s been rode back a little bit from where Lando’s positions back understandably with the emotion following the race.

“I am sure we’re going to see more hard racing between the two of them through the second half of the year. You learn from it, you move on.”

Horner feels the dynamic between Verstappen and Norris has intensified over the last few races, starting out in Barcelona.

At the start of the race, Norris pushed Verstappen onto the grass at the start, which allowed George Russell to get a run on them before taking the lead.

“For me that incident started a week earlier on the run down to Turn 1 in Barcelona where Lando had him on the grass,” he explained.

Martin Brundle then questioned Horner about whether Austria was payback for what happened in Spain.

Horner added: “I am not saying it’s payback but you can see it's starting to get feisty. These guys have raced each other and raced hard throughout their careers. You know Max.

“He’s going to fight for every inch of tarmac. I am sure Lando will have learned from that. Max would have as well. Ultimately he got a penalty for it which obviously was unfortunate as well.”