Verstappen and the Red Bull team snubbed Sky and its Italian and German affiliates all weekend at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
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Max Verstappen says his boycott of Sky F1 this weekend in Mexico City was motivated by the broadcaster’s consistent and disrespectful attitude toward him. Verstappen snubbed Sky’s crews following comments made after the US Grand Prix by Sky F1 pundit Ted Kravitz, who reportedly used the word “robbed” to describe Lewis Hamilton’s controversial title defeat to Verstappen in Abu Dhabi last year on multiple occasions. Verstappen and the Red Bull team snubbed Sky and its Italian and German affiliates all weekend at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
“It had nothing to do this weekend,” said the two-time world champion. “But this year it’s been a constant, yeah, kind of like daily being disrespectful, especially one particular person. And it’s enough, I don’t accept it. You can’t live in the past. You just have to move on. Social media is a very toxic place, and if you are constantly being like that live on TV, you make it only worse instead of trying to make it better.”
“You keep disrespecting me, and at one point, I’m not tolerating it anymore. That’s why I decided to stop answering them,” the Dutchman added.
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner agreed with his driver, saying his team was disappointed by a series of disparaging comments made about Sky, which led to the decision to snub them this weekend. “There needs to be balance in commentary,” explained Horner. “Some of the commentary is excellent, but some of the pieces, there’s too much sensationalisation being done. We stand together as a team.”
“I think an accusation of championships being robbed is something that we don’t feel is an impartial commentary,” added Horner. “That is, we don’t feel, in any way fair or balanced. Max was very upset about it, and as a team, we support him fully. We were equally upset about it. As a team, we took the decision this weekend, I took the decision that we’ll have a weekend off.”
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After an intriguing strategic battle at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, Max Verstappen won his 14th race of the 2022 season in Mexico City, ahead of Mercedes rival Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez. It secures another record for the Dutchman in his burgeoning career, as he now has the most wins in a single F1 season, one more than Michael Schumacher (2004) and Sebastian Vettel (2014). (2013).
Verstappen, whose Red Bull team chose a soft-medium tyre strategy, won by 15 seconds over Hamilton, who was left wondering why Mercedes changed their starting set of mediums for hards. Perez gave the home fans something to cheer about by finishing third after threatening Hamilton late on, while Russell finished fourth after losing out to his teammate at the start.
