Much has been said about racism in Formula One in the past week. First Juri Vips and not long after Nelson Piquet were both found guilty of having used racist language. Vips can forget about his future at Red Bull Racing, while Piquet is no longer welcome in the F1 paddock.
Much has been said about racism in Formula One in the past week. First Juri Vips and not long after Nelson Piquet were both found guilty of having used racist language. Vips can forget about his future at Red Bull Racing, while Piquet is no longer welcome in the F1 paddock.
While many teams condemned the language used by the three-time F1 world champion, Red Bull settled on a statement about racism and the dismissal of its test driver Vips.
Christian Horner was asked why Red Bull did not issue a separate statement condemning Piquet's comments to Lewis Hamilton. On Sky Sports, the team boss explains the choices his team made.
"We feel we made a very strong statement through the action of taking Juri out of the team. We released a statement earlier in the day about zero tolerance for racism and then we released another statement about Piquet," he said.
"We are fully supporting Lewis and are signed up to the committee," Horner said. Not only Red Bull, but also Verstappen spoke out about the controversy surrounding Piquet. According to Horner, there is no point in looking for something behind it.
"Max has made it absolutely clear that he fully supports Lewis, as he stated in the press conference yesterday. Not just Lewis, but any form of racism or discrimination in the sport," the Red Bull boss concluded.