Why Red Bull did not comment on Piquet's racist remarks

Earlier this week, footage from an interview conducted last November surfaced in which Piquet spoke about Hamilton using a racially offensive term. It has since emerged that the 69-year-old Brazilian used another racist slur along with homophobic language in reference to Hamilton in the same interview. 

The three-time world champion - who is the father of Max Verstappen’s girlfriend Kelly Piquet - has been banned from the F1 paddock and had his honorary membership from the British Racing Drivers’ Club (BRDC) revoked amid widespread condemnation from the motorsport community. 

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Red Bull, along with several other F1 teams, did not issue a statement about Piquet’s comments. 

The Milton Keynes outfit terminated former junior Juri Vips’ contract ahead of this weekend’s British Grand Prix after he made a racist comment during a live stream on social media. Announcing the decision, Red Bull stated the team “do not condone any form of racism”. 

Asked why Red Bull had decided against putting out a further statement about Piquet, Horner told Sky: “First of all, we’re appalled by Nelson’s comments. It’s from an interview from quite a long time ago. 

“We obviously had an incident with one of our young drivers at the end of last week and we took very definitive action where he’d made a racist comment and so we took action and we removed him from the team. 

“So we put out a statement about Juri and then this one came out and we felt that we’d made a very strong statement through action of actually dropping Juri from the team for not condoning any form of racism or discrimination.

"We’ve put out another statement earlier in the day about Juri, about having zero tolerance for racism,” Horner added. 

“To then put out another statement about Piquet, of course we’re behind Lewis, we’re fully signed up to the Hamilton commission. 

“Actions sometimes talk louder than words and the action we took with Juri, was obviously draconian, but in line with the policy that we have.” 

Verstappen ‘fully supportive’ of Hamilton 

On Thursday, Verstappen acknowledged that Piquet’s comment made towards Hamilton was “not correct” but insisted the three-time world champion is “definitely not a racist”. 

“Max is absolutely clear, he stated it in the press conference yesterday, that he’s fully supportive of Lewis,” Horner added. “Not just Lewis, but to any form of racism or discrimination in the sport. 

“Red Bull are a young team, a very inclusive team. We have a very young following, a very diverse following and that’s very important to us. Of course Lewis is going to have huge support here. 

“Next weekend is another home race for us and I’m sure the team is going to have huge support with another 30,000 Dutch fans there. That’s sport isn’t it? That’s competition.” 

The reigning world champion was booed during Sky Sports’ F1 Show on Thursday evening. 

Asked if he had spoken to Verstappen about the crowd’s reaction to him at Silverstone, Horner responded: “It’s never nice to hear boos for any driver. 

“It’s unusual for the British Grand Prix crowd to do that, because they usually appreciate all drivers. But do you know what? It’s something that he accepts. 

“Lewis is their favourite driver here and I’ve got no issue with that. Next weekend I know they’ll be a lot of support. He has massive support all over the world. It’s just one of those things.”