Verstappen’s Sky Sports fallout eclipsed Red Bulls’ magic in Mexico GP

But he is not at all happy, he says, thanks to comments from British TV reporter Ted Kravitz which questioned the validity of his 2021 title and he has thrown his toys out of the pram – with a little help from team boss Christian Horner.

Verstappen and the wider Red Bull team refused to take part in any interviews with Sky Sports following its UK coverage of the United States GP, where veteran pit journalist Kravitz used the word ‘robbed’ when discussing Lewis Hamilton’s defeat to Verstappen nearly 12 months ago.

The Dutchman branded the UK coverage ‘disrespectful. I don’t accept it, I’m not tolerating it any more’.

Horner called the broadcaster’s comments ‘derogatory, sensationalist and unbalanced’, adding: ‘Max was very upset about it. We were equally upset about it. I took the decision that we’ll have a weekend off. Service will be resumed in Brazil.’

Horner, in particular, likes rubbing people up the wrong way as evidenced by his pantomime role on Netflix’s Drive to Survive.

Banning the biggest European broadcaster from Red Bull’s activities is not dramatic, it’s petulant. Public relations pitfalls notwithstanding, their race team did themselves proud once again with Red Bull’s soft-medium tyre strategy leaving Mercedes with their collective jaws on the floor.

They were banking on the world champions having to make a second stop in the race’s third act but Verstappen and local hero Sergio Perez were able to make their tyres last to the finish line.

Meanwhile, Merc’s hard Pirellis were unable to rein them in despite the high mileage. In the end, the Silver Arrows went too conservative, starting on the mediums and not touching the softs.

Daniel Ricciardo drove from 11th on the grid to seventh on a medium-soft strategy, despite incurring a 10-second penalty for nerfing Yuki Tsunoda off the track. If Toto Wolff’s cars had adopted the same strategy, maybe they could have scored that elusive win.

‘One-stop, medium-hard, looked the right strategy,’ said Wolff. ‘That the medium held on for so long at the end came as a surprise. If we were to restart the race, maybe we would choose a different tyre.’

‘There are always reliability issues,’ he said. ‘I blew up five engines this year. More or less 50 per cent of the races, we haven’t scored the points we deserve. I think they have some jobs to do over the winter – hopefully not too much.’ Not his problem, anyway.

Ferrari have work to do, too. The Scuderia have not won a race since Austria in July. In Mexico they were also-rans, finishing fifth and sixth.

Charles Leclerc, who has slipped to third in the drivers’ standings, called Sunday one of the worst races of their 2022 campaign, saying: ‘We were in the middle of nowhere. Just a very lonely race.’

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