Max Verstappen News: Red Bull Driver Lashes Out At Critics After Brazil GP
Red Bull's Max Verstappen has hit back after his family started receiving abuse on social media after his Brazilian Grand Prix controversy.
In the final stages of the race in Brazil, the Red Bull team instructed Verstappen to pass his teammate Sergio Perez in order to try and take some points off of Fernando Alonso and Charles Leclerc. This was under the proviso that he would give the place back to Perez before the end to help the Mexican driver in his efforts to get second place in the driver's championship.
However, Verstappen did not listen to the team and did not let Perez past again. As Verstappen has already won the driver's championship and has broken the record for the amount of race wins in a season, there was nothing in it for him. Especially as he was sitting in sixth place, so was not in line for a podium finish.
Verstappen told the team that he had his reasons, however he has not disclosed what these reasons are to the media. Many have speculated that it was due to Perez's Monaco Grand Prix qualifying crash that meant he started the race ahead of Verstappen, which he then went on to win.
The Belgian-Dutch driver has received a huge amount of backlash from fans since the move, and during all of the backlash Verstappen's mother decided to hit back at Perez by bringing up his cheating allegations.
In the lead up to the final race of the 2022 season, Verstappen has hit back. He said:
"I have never been a bad team-mate to anyone. I've always been very helpful, and the team knows that.
"I think what we learned from that is that we have to be a little bit more open, and we have to communicate better to each other,
"After the race, of course, I looked very bad in the media. But also, they don't have a clear picture. But to immediately put me down like that, it's pretty ridiculous to be honest because they don't know how I work within the team.
The two-time champion continued:
"So all the things I've read is pretty disgusting. Even more than that, they started attacking my family, they were threatening my sister, my mum, my girlfriend, my dad. For me, that goes way too far.
"You don't have the facts of what was actually going on, and that definitely has to stop. If you have a problem with me, that's fine, but don't go after my family, because that's just unacceptable.
"Honestly, I have a great relationship with Checo but I just don't understand when people don't have the full picture maybe start attacking me like that. I hope one day they actually understand what was going on, because it's just unacceptable behaviour of so many people."
Verstappen went on to insist that no one knows the full or real story in an attempt to shoot down the claims it is to do the Monaco GP qualifying. He said:
"You don't know the real story, so you don't need to write a story. I'm just a bit fed up with all this bulls**t just going around all the time. It's pretty sickening, to be honest, being part of that.
"At the end of the day, I haven't even done anything wrong, it's just people misunderstood what was actually going on."