Christian Horner laughed off barbs from Toto Wolff that described the Red Bull team principal as a “yapping little terrier” at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Wolff made an impromptu appearance during a George Russell press conference on Thursday to defend his driver and criticize Horner for his use of the term “hysterical” when describing Russell’s behavior at times during the Qatar Grand Prix weekend. When the comments were put to Horner, he remained relatively reserved, saying there are worse things to be described as.
“I love terriers — I think they are great dogs!” Horner said. “I’ve had four! A couple of airedales, which are the king of the terriers. I had couple of West Highland terriers called Bernie and Flavio. The good thing with terriers is that they are tremendously loyal. Bernie was an aggressive little dog — he’d go for anybody. Flavio was a bit more chilled out, he maybe ate too much as well.
“Look, to be called a terrier, is that such a bad thing? They are not afraid to have a go at the bigger dogs. I’d rather be called a terrier than a wolf, maybe.”
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Horner says he doesn’t believe the recent falling out between Russell and Max Verstappen is re-opening animosity between the top personnel at Red Bull and Mercedes, despite Wolff claiming Horner has been “weak” in the way he has handled his driver.
“Toto’s quite dramatic as we all know,” he said. “I wasn’t talking about the psychology of his driver. When I was referring to hysterics, I was more referring to the roasting that he gave his team when they fitted a set of hards onto the car when he’d asked for a set of mediums and expressed his displeasure for the tire choice that they’d put on the car. I’d get fined if I were to repeat the language he used in this press conference.
“A lot has been said — we know Toto likes to talk a lot but that’s the way it is. For us, we just want to finish the season on a high, have a great race, see these guys battle it out and hopefully everybody then can have a well-earned break and rest after this race.
“Regarding Toto’s other comments, I’m not going to raise to the bait of that. Everybody manages themselves and their teams in different ways. We’ve won 122 races, we’ve won 14 world championships. I think we’re doing all right.”
Horner also doesn’t expect the situation to spill out onto the track, despite Russell’s claim that Verstappen had threatened to intentionally crash into him in Qatar.
“Max is a very straight shooter — he tells you exactly how he sees it,” Horner said. “He tells the truth, exactly what he feels. He had a large amount of frustration last weekend with the way things played out. It was a scenario we hadn’t seen before, with the subsequent grid penalty. He turned it into motivation and had a blinding start. He won the grand prix, which was the best possible response.
“Obviously a lot was made of it yesterday — it’s pantomime season. We are getting ready for Christmas. So there’s maybe some end-of-term blues there but I don’t think it will have any effect on the grand prix itself.”