Max Verstappen breaks silence on Sky Sports boycott and hints at Ted Kravitz issue | F1 | Sport
Max Verstappen has revealed he is boycotting Sky Sports F1 due to the channel’s “constant digging”, as he suggested there was an issue with Ted Kravitz. Verstappen said he was annoyed at the channel “being disrespectful” and suggested there was “one particular person” at the centre of the row.
It is understood Verstappen’s boycott of the channel is “indefinite” in a blow for viewers. Other members of Red Bull have also joined the snub, with Christian Horner also not talking to the network.
Verstappen said: “It has been a constant kind of digging and being disrespectful, especially from one particular person. At one point it is enough, and I don’t accept it. You cannot live in the past and you have to move on.”
Sky Sports did show footage of Verstappen talking after his Mexico GP win, but this was taken from the world feed. Later interview footage appeared to be taken from elsewhere as the questions were asked by a non-Sky Sports F1 journalist.
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Horner was also a notable absence from the post-race coverage despite Red Bull winning the race. The team’s boycott comes after Kravitz seemed to suggest Lewis Hamilton was “robbed” of the F1 title in Abu Dhabi last season.
He made the controversial remarks in his ‘Ted’s Notebook’ show after last week’s United States Grand Prix. Kravitz said: “[Hamilton] doesn’t win a race all year, and then finally comes back at a track where he could win the first race all year, battling the same guy who won the race he was robbed in the previous year, and manages to finish ahead of him.
“What a script and a story that would have been. But that’s not the way the script turned out today, was it? Because the guy that beat him after being robbed actually overtook him, because he’s got a quicker car, because of engineering and Formula One and design, and pretty much because of [Adrian Newey, Red Bull’s Chief Technical Officer] over there.”
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Kravitz also claimed Verstappen “didn’t seem to be a driver capable of winning a championship in a normal way”. The snub is understood to affect the network’s international channels in Italy and Germany.
A spokesperson for Red Bull told The Telegraph that the boycott was down to “longstanding issues with the lack of balance” shown by Kravitz.
