Bad news for Horner: 'My father Jos has always been there for me and will continue to be'

Christian Horner must have breathed a sigh of relief when the Red Bull Racing team boss learnt that Jos Verstappen was passing up the British Grand Prix. The relationship between Horner and Verstappen has soured considerably and things are not going to get better. No doubt Horner would prefer to see Father Verstappen disappear from the picture completely, but that would be a vain hope. After all, Max - Red Bull Racing's star driver - is 100% behind his father.

Verstappen junior sides with Jos

Although the former F1 driver will not be there at Silverstone, Jos obviously follows Max's exploits closely and contact is more than regular. 'Definitely' is therefore the answer Verstappen junior gives to British newspaper Daily Mail, when asked if Jos Verstappen will continue to come to his son's races? "He’s not coming to every single Grand Prix nowadays, naturally, because of having a family and racing himself in rallying," he says.

But out of sight certainly does not mean out of mind: "We are a family. He is always there for me and that will never change," Max Verstappen told a week after a lot of fuss between Jos and Horner. The latter was not at all happy - to put it mildly - that Jos would take part in a demo at the Red Bull Ring in an old F1 car of the Austrian team.

This heard Jos Verstappen, who subsequently decided to forgo the demo run, to the disappointment of the many tens of thousands of Dutch fans around the Austrian circuit. During a press conference, Horner then received many questions about this, to the visible irritation of the team boss. Helmut Marko, who is on the Verstappens' side, compared in conversation with GPblog the bickering as 'kindergarten'.

This article was written in collaboration with Olly Darcy