‘We’ll have discussions behind closed doors’ – Horner defends Verstappen after heated radio outbursts in Hungary

Max Verstappen was outspoken throughout the Hungarian Grand Prix in Budapest, voicing his opinions on the team’s chosen strategy, his car's performance and his rivals' driving.

It led to some eyebrow raising radio exchanges between the Dutchman and his Race Engineer Gianpiero Lambiase – but Team Principal Christian Horner was swift to dispel any rumours of a rift when he spoke to the media after the Grand Prix.

Verstappen's frustrations began at the very first corner of the opening lap when he felt he was pushed wide by Lando Norris. But running second, the team asked him to give the place back to the McLaren man or risk face a penalty.

He was then undercut twice by Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes on a day where the undercut was powerful and track position was king, before late contact between the pair dropped the Dutchman from fourth to fifth at the flag.

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But speaking after the race Horner insisted he had no concerns about his driver's approach to the race, or to team communications.

“At the start, he made a position, we felt it was a racing incident, three into the corner, naturally run out of road. We thought it looked okay but as soon as it goes to the stewards, at that point the view is you are probably going to get a penalty so that’s why we conceded a place back to Lando,” Horner said.

“We felt go longer, [to get] an overlap advantage – and actually on the hard tyre you can see Max was competitive and strong, especially compared to the McLarens. So he caught Lewis quickly then unfortunately in the dirty air got stuck as Lewis started to really drop off.

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“So, if we’d have got past Lewis at that point we may have been able to have a go at one of the McLarens. Then [in the final stint] he picked off [Charles] Leclerc, and I think a racing incident with Lewis is the right way to describe it, and he picked up some damage after the car flew through the air, so a frustrating race.

"The thing we underestimated was how tricky it was in the dirty air – that did the most damage for us.”

That explained the team’s strategy, but what of their driver’s reaction, and his increasingly heated radio exchanges with his engineer?

“Look, Max was frustrated, which you can understand. He has a very direct line of communication with his engineer so, yeah, it’s something that they’ll discuss between the two of them,” Horner said.

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"They’ve been together for eight years and yes there are things we could have done better in the race today that we’ll talk about as a team.

"I think everybody sees we need to find more performance, and everybody is working hard to do that and we’ll have whatever discussions behind closed doors."

Horner was also asked whether Verstappen's pre-race preparations were up to scratch, but insisted “he knows exactly what is required of him in a Grand Prix and we trust his judgement on that”.