Christian Horner reveals Max Verstappen’s ‘five gin and tonics’ preparation for Qatar GP

Christian Horner said he had to stop Max Verstappen from drinking gin and tonics after he won the world title in Qatar.

Verstappen had the unusual honour of winning the World Championship on a Saturday following the sprint in Qatar, meaning his celebrations were perhaps more mooted than usual.

If you were wondering what a mooted celebration for Verstappen is like, Horner has revealed it was “five gin and tonics.”

马克斯Verstappen的排毒’ during hot Qatar race

The world of sport nutrition is one of the areas that has advanced the most since the early days of F1. These days, drivers’ diets are heavily managed to make sure they are fit, healthy and ready to perform on race day.

So, five gin and tonics is unlikely to ever fit in a nutritionist’s plans, but when you have just won your third consecutive world title, rules get thrown out of the window.

Red Bull team boss Horner has revealed that Verstappen had “five gin and tonics” after winning the world title despite having another race the next day.

“He’s just a good guy and he’s a fun guy,” Horner told Dax Shepard’s eff won podcast. “And he’s old school as well. He won the Championship in Qatar and I said ‘Okay, let’s get the whole team together. We’ll just have a couple of drinks. It’s not every day you win a World Championship.’

“But it was unusual to win it on a Saturday, right? We’ve a grand prix by the way in 42 degrees on Sunday. So everybody needs to be in bed at a sensible time.

“Max is five gin and tonics in and we need to stop, everybody needs to go to bed now. So everybody was hanging [hungover] on Sunday.

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“You’ve got all the drivers passing out with the heat, I think Max was on some kind of detox!”

Verstappen jokingly blamed F1 for enforcing a format that could lead to an unusual title celebration.

“I blame F1 for that, for introducing the sprint weekends,” the three-time World Champion told Channel 4.

“These kinds of things aren’t in your control, I always try to score as many points as possible and that made it possible to win on a Saturday. It’s okay.”

Verstappen’s hungover state clearly did not affect him too badly with the Dutchman winning the race in Qatar in what was his 14th victory of the season.

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