Christian Horner responded to Toto Wolff’s ‘yapping little terrier’ comment as he gave his view on the feud between F1 drivers Max Verstappen and George Russell.
Christian Horner bit back at Toto Wolff as tension rises between Red Bull and Mercedes, declaring: “I’d rather be a terrier than a Wolff”.
War broke out in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix paddock on Thursday when Max Verstappen accused George Russell of lying to get him punished by the stewards at the previous race in Qatar, prompting a furious and lengthy response from the Brit.
Mercedes boss Wolff even got involved to slam Horner’s leadership and blasted the Red Bull chief for not putting a tighter leash on Verstappen. The Austrian made his attack personal by calling his rival boss a “yapping little terrier”.
Speaking a press conference on Friday, Horner was presented with an opportunity to bite back at those remarks. But he said: “I’m not going to rise to the bait of that. Everybody manages their teams in different ways. We’ve won 122 races, 14 world championships – I think we’re doing alright.”
He also took the opportunity to crack a joke and smiled as he said: “I love terriers! I think they’re great dogs. I’ve had four of them. I’ve had a couple of Airedales, the king of the terriers, and I had a couple of West Highland terriers called Bernie and Flavio. The good things about terriers is they’re tremendously loyal.
“Bernie, he was an aggressive little dog – he’d go for anybody. And Flavio was a bit more chilled out and probably ate a bit too much. To be called a terrier, is that such a bad thing? They’re not afraid of having a go at the bigger dogs. I’d rather be a terrier than a Wolff, maybe.”
Wolff and Horner have always been involved in some manner making personal attacks to the other party. The Red Bull boss kept his humour mostly in check but did imply that his focus should be on Lewis Hamilton’s last race for the team rather than defending his other driver.
He said: ‘I think there is that kind of love-hate affair in which Toto loves to hate me,’ he said. It’s one of those things. I thought it would have been enough for him as this is Lewis’ last race for that team. Looking at that, I think they should be celebrating that rather than concentrating on other aspects.
Controversy still surrounds what exactly was said between Verstappen and Russell and while both had their say during a meeting with stewards’ in Qatar, post the incident. Still, Horner has no doubt at all that it went according to what his driver narrated it.
He added: I think Max is a very frank person – he doesn’t beat around the bush, he just speaks his mind, but it’s true, he does not lie so he tells the truth as he sees it. All Max does is always tell the truth So when he spoke I knew to be true exactly what he said.