After securing pole position for the Qatar Grand Prix, Max Verstappen was handed a perplexing one-place grid penalty for impeding George Russell. Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has some concerns. 

Specifically, he has pinpointed Russell’s “hysterics” after the event as being the main reason for Verstappen’s penalty — and he isn’t happy.

Christian Horner calls out George Russell’s Qatar GP ‘hysterics’

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

As Max Verstappen was cruising around the track on a slow lap before making his final push for pole position in the last qualifying session ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix, George Russell came flying up behind him.

Fascinatingly, Russell was also on a slow lap, but he was driving much faster than Verstappen and the other car in front of him. The Mercedes driver took evasive action by dipping through the gravel — but it was enough for the race stewards to hand Verstappen a one-place grid penalty.

After all, Russell pinpointed that drive through the gravel as being the reason he failed to beat Verstappen’s fastest lap time.

And Christian Horner wasn’t happy.

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“Let’s just say he wasn’t enamored with the decision,” Horner said of Max Verstappen, speaking to media including PlanetF1.com.

“It was a very strange decision, because obviously the circumstances of qualifying, both cars were on slow laps, and I did feel that George and Mercedes made a big meal out of it.”

Horner noted that it was “unprecedented” for a driver to be penalized on his slow lap during qualifying; he also pointed out that “one could argue that perhaps George was driving a little too quickly on a slow lap with two cars in front of him. Maybe he was driving recklessly.”

Further, he suggested that there may be some kind of mental games afoot.

“Yesterday’s penalty was more based on hysterics from George,” Horner said, “who has been quite hysterical this weekend.

“I think there was a little bit of gamesmanship going on in that.”

Though the penalty was “disappointing,” Horner said it provided Verstappen with additional “enthusiasm to get off the line well” at the start of the race.

Max, he said, “was absolutely determined that he was going to win; wherever George was going to brake, he was going to brake later, and he converted that grid position into the lead by the end of Turn 1.”

The following day, during the race itself, Verstappen was quick to jump on the radio to alert his team to Lando Norris driving too quickly in a double-waved yellow zone. So adamant was he to see the McLaren driver punished that Max called into Red Bull several times to check on the status of the report.

“I think with Max having spent a little bit of intimate time with the stewards on Saturday, he was very keen that it was looked at thoroughly,” Horner said.

In response to a question about whether or not Verstappen had read the sporting rulebook, Horner said he had.

“It’s part of being a driver,” he told media.

He also pointed out that not being familiar with the rules nearly caught Verstappen out during the race; the message came over the radio that the safety car was going to pull in at the end of the lap, but its lights remained on.

“You’re then supposed to keep a distance to the back of the car,” Horner said. That meant Verstappen couldn’t prepare for the restart as he normally would; he didn’t know if a restart was actually coming.

“He was following the instruction of the safety car, basically, and then it came into the pits, which obviously then compromised him,” Horner said.

“But he was still fortunate to stay ahead of Lando down at Turn 1.”

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