Guenther Steiner believes there has been a lot of “overreacting” going on to the booing Red Bull faced in London.

Ultimately, Steiner believes a “theme” has emerged in Formula 1 to “boo Christian Horner and Red Bull“, which the crowd at the F1 75 launch event “jumped on the bandwagon” with, but there were no “nasty” intentions with Steiner believing that the FIA intervention was a step not needed.

Red Bull booing ‘just a bit of fun’, says Steiner

In a first of its kind event, all 10 teams headed for London’s O2 Arena to reveal their liveries for the upcoming F1 2025 season.

However, during Red Bull’s seven-minute slot to reveal their RB21’s colours, booing could be heard from the crowd towards team principal Horner, while a similar reaction was heard when Verstappen – who joined Horner and new Red Bull team-mate Liam Lawson on the stage – appeared on screen at the event.

“Well, it’s fantastic to be here in the O2 anyway!” Horner came back with to the reception.

“I think it has become a little bit of a theme, you know, to boo Christian Horner and Red Bull,” claimed Red Bull’s former technical operations director and ex-Haas F1 team boss Guenther Steiner, in an appearance on ESPN’s ‘unlapped’ podcast.

“I think it was not meant to be nasty. It was just having a little bit of fun as well.

“I don’t know it was a bad booing, you know, the people got upset with them. It was just like, you know, you’ve got the good people and the bad people everywhere. So in the moment, they are just the people you boo.

“But it’s a little bit a trend. It’s a thing to boo Red Bull. Everybody jumps on the bandwagon.”

Podcast host Nicole Briscoe would then put it to Steiner that alongside “some of the drama surrounding the team last year” being “one reason to boo them”, it is also a common theme in sport that a successful team is hated because “we as fans, can’t sit there and enjoy the greatness”.

She would therefore ask Steiner if she felt Red Bull were justified in being upset.

Steiner does not believe so, and claimed that the parties involved from Red Bull’s side and Formula 1’s governing body the FIA – which released a statement denouncing the booing – were over the top with their reactions.

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In the immediate aftermath, Max’s father Jos Verstappen claimed that Max would boycott the event in future if it was again held in England, a stance understood to have been acknowledged internally within Red Bull.

It is understood Red Bull were also unhappy with how the event played out, having expected a mixed demographic crowd, rather than a predominantly British one coming off the back of defeats in recent years versus Verstappen for home heroes Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton – an audience which was never going to give Verstappen the warmest of receptions.

“I don’t think you can have a right to be upset about anything in general,” Steiner responded, “because you always have to look at yourself.

“But I think they shouldn’t take it as serious as everybody’s taking this one. I think we’re overreacting. And more you do that, more it happens. For me, that is what is happening.

“Also the FIA coming out with that statement, the booing is incorrect, but as you say, these are passionate fans, and booing, booing is not really anything bad. Because you can be fun and clapping to somebody, it’s bad.

“It’s a show of emotion, and I think if you have no emotions, it’s boring. We are still human beings, not everything is controlled by AI yet.

“For me, it’s a nothing burger basically. It’s like yeah, booed, they’re not the favourite of the fans at the moment, somebody else will be in two years, it’s emotions and passion in a sport, and that’s what it brings.”

Steiner concluded: “Not everybody can be loved.”

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