Picture Credit: Twitter/@F1
What a race it was and what a win for the Dutchman Max Verstappen on Sunday. The Red Bull Racing driver became the first Dutch to become the World Champion in Formula One. Elated with Max Verstappen's maiden Formula 1 title at Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Christian Horner made a huge promise to Williams driver Nicholas Latifi.
The Williams driver, aged 26 was involved in a sudden mishap during the season finale on Sunday. Latifi had a brief skirmish with Haas driver Mick Schumacher in the final laps of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. However, it was Latifi's car which crashed into the barriers to bring an abrupt end to his 2021 edition of Formula One.
While Latifi was left to rue his mistakes, he actually ended up playing a key part in Verstappen's win over Hamilton, denying the former world champion his eighth title.
Meanwhile, post the race, Horner was reportedly quoted, "He’ll be getting a lifetime supply of Red Bull for sure. That just about sums up this year I think because I said I think I called it on commentary that it was going to need something from the racing gods for the last ten laps."
It is to be noted that the incident gave enough time for Verstappen to return to the pitlane and change to soft tyres, which eventually gave enough time to close the gap on Hamilton after F1 race director Michael Masi reportedly made the controversial decision to allow lapped cars to pass between them before the final lap.
Horner further went on to thank Latifi for his unintentionally assisting in Verstappen's victory.
"Thank you Nicholas Latifi for that safety car, and I have to say with the stewards, we felt hard done early in the race, but they did great to get the race growing again. But it's been an insane competition, and for Max to win the world championship it's not just about here, it's about a whole year," he quoted.
However, Mercedes did protest alleging breach of rules stated by governing bodies, which later was rejected by the FIA with Max Verstappen claiming the World Champion title.