Verstappen wins in the desert kingdom

The drama is off the track as Formula One descends into a nasty shouting match. PETER COSTER reports on the rage and the rumours.

Instead of Grand Prix, read Grand Opera as the chorus of allegations against Red Bull principal Christian Horner reaches Wagnerian heights.

Horner and opposing counter tenor Jos Vestappen were seen in an angry exchange behind closed doors at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Jos the Boss, father of Max, later accused Horner of “playing the victim when he is the cause of the problem.”

It started with an unnamed Red Bull female employee accusing Horner of “inappropriate behaviour’’ later translated as “sexually suggestive.”

Horner was cleared after an eight-hour interrogation by a so-called “specialised barrister.”

But there are other high-pitched voices in this soap opera with triple world champion Max Verstappen potentially leaving the Red Bull team in spite of winning the Bahrain and now the Saudi GP.

The woman who has made the allegations has been suspended on full pay by Red Bull and Horner might still follow her out the door with hundreds of What’s App exchanges with Horner being dumped online.

Pulled into the melodrama is Horner’s wife, former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, who is playing the heroine.

She has been seen hand-in-hand in the pit lane with her supposedly errant husband and sharing a seemingly passionate kiss for the cameras.

She could have played the role of one of Wagner’s Valkyries from the German composer’s Ring cycle, but is doing her best to support a husband, who at the very least his made a blithering fool of himself in the F1 paddock.

Defamation suits are being threatened as a cast of lawyers takes the stage as act two or three unfolds.

Horner would have found himself without a job if Red Bull co-owner Mark Mateschitz had his way. The son of the late Red Bull founder, Austrian energy drink billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz, has a 49 per cent share  of  the global business while 51 percent is owned by Chalerm Yoovidhya and his family in Thailand.

Mateschitz reportedly wants Horner out but Yoovidhya wants the long-term team boss to stay.

How long that might be is dependent on the final acts in this operatic epic.

Meanwhile, the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was a repeat not only of Max Verstappen’s pole-to-flag performance at Bahrain (apart from a brief  interlude for a tyre change) but another Red Bull one-two (with Sergio Perez another distant second).

Verstappen has played a supporting role in the Horner saga and kept his focus on driving the car. If he were to go to Mercedes following Lewis Hamilton’s defection to Ferrari next year, designer Adrian Newey and even Red Bull senior consultant Helmut Marko might go with him.

Horner has his enemies after leading the team since its inception in 2005 and while some question the motives of Verstappen’s father in the fallout, Jos Verstappen responded:

“Why would I do that when Max is doing so well here.”

That is an understatement when his son is likely on his way to a fourth successive world drivers’ championship.

Saturday night’s race in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (a day early because of the start of Ramadan) would have been merely pedestrian were it not for the sudden replacement of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz because of an appendicitis attack.

Formula 2  driver Ollie Bearman stepped up and showed he is an F1 star of the future. The teenager (he is only 18 years old) was voted driver of the day by millions of fans and finished seventh.

It was a remarkable drive, without a mistake and quickly acknowledged by Ferrari third-placegetter Charles Leclerc.

Melbourne driver Oscar Piastri was fourth while veteran Australian Daniel Ricciardo could manage only 16th in the Visa card RB behind teammate Yuki Tsunoda.

The Honey Badger will need to show a clear advantage over the Japanese driver this season if he is to replace Sergio Perez.

The race in the desert kingdom produced only one major incident as Aston Martin driver Lance Stroll clipped a barrier and destroyed the front end of his car.

Oscar Piastri in the McLaren thought his race was over after a similar misjudgement in qualifying, but the car was undamaged. He started fifth.

McLaren teammate Lando Norris finished eighth after starting fourth following a jump-start.

He rolled forward before the lights went out but was able to reverse back into the starting box without setting off a transponder that would have alerted the stewards.

Fernando Alonso’s fifth place behind Piastri showed the former F1 double champion has still got what it takes as the older driver on the grid at the age of 42.

George Russell finished sixth for Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton ninth as the F1 grid starts to stabilise.

Red Bull remains the class of the field with Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren the other front runners, including the ageless Alonso.

The teams and drivers face a daunting season this year with a record 24 races on the calendar. The next race is in Melbourne in two weeks.

The pace of the season itself as well as the cars on the track it being driven by greed. There is no other word to describe a schedule that risks exhausting teams in a dangerous sport that sees them racing on an average of every two weeks.

There are successive double headers and triple headers and jet lag to contend with as teams sit long hours on private jets.

Toss in a few sprint races ahead of the Grand Prix races and you might wonder how Fernando Alonso at 42, Lewis Hamilton at 39 and even Daniel Ricciardo at 34 stick the pace.