The F1 75 event in London two weeks ago was meant to hype up the community and pay homage to the sport, which was celebrating its 75th anniversary. All 10 teams had to reveal their liveries in front of a live audience for the first time. There were celebrity performances and plenty of on-stage banter, but one incident left a sour taste in the mouths of neutrals.
It was the constant booing directed at Max Verstappen and Christian Horner.
When they were introduced on stage, the majority of those in attendance at the O2 Arena that evening began jeering, which didn’t make for a pretty moment. The FIA — who were also booed — even released a statement condemning the actions.
But was there any reason to boo the Red Bull duo in the first place? After all, as Jos Verstappen said, they were only there to promote the sport everyone in the stadium loved. Guenther Steiner, for one, believes it’s because fans want to jump on the bandwagon.
“I think it has become a bit of a theme to boo Christian Horner and Red Bull,” Steiner said on ESPN’s Unlapped podcast. “I think it was not meant to be nasty…it was having a little bit of fun.”
Steiner doesn’t think the British crowd was upset with Red Bull in any way. He opined that, just like in movies, F1 also has good characters and bad characters — and Red Bull falls into the latter category, especially owing to their recent dominance. “It’s trendy but it is not nasty,” Steiner added.
Horner, meanwhile, felt that the booing came as a result of almost no one in the crowd rooting for his team. He compared it to “launching your away strip in a home fans’ stadium.” But his driver couldn’t care less about it.
Verstappen’s heckling and reaction to it
The Dutchman is not a fan of F1’s media-centric activities and prefers to focus on the sporting side of things. Whether his disdain of these glamorous non-sporting events led to the booing, we don’t know. But Horner still expected fans to treat the four-time world champion better.
Max Verstappen on the F1 75 livery launch event happening in February pic.twitter.com/r6969u7r40
— ESPN F1 (@ESPNF1) November 13, 2024
That said, he once again brought in the ‘away fans’ argument into the discussion. “If the launch had been in Holland, no doubt the reception would have been somewhat different,” he said.
Verstappen, meanwhile, did not express too much sadness over being heckled by the crowd on a historic night for F1. In fact, he sarcastically said, “It was fantastic,” when asked about what had happened in a press conference.
Then, he went on to pretend that he had no idea there was any booing directed at him. “Maybe I’m deaf,” the 27-year-old added.
Classic Max. He won’t let anything external break or affect him in any way. But his dad Jos was. He stated that the way the British crowd treated his son was disrespectful, and that he would never attend another event in the UK in the future.
