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Christian Horner: Jos Verstappen says controversy ‘driving team apart’

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Max Verstappen started his campaign for a fourth consecutive world title with a dominant win at the Bahrain Grand Prix on Saturday.

In the build-up to the race in Bahrain, the defending champion was asked four times whether he had full confidence and faith in Horner as Red Bull team principal and each time he gave only qualified support.

The Horner controversy dominated events at the season-opening race.

A day after Red Bull announced that the grievance against him had been “dismissed” following an internal inquiry, an anonymous email including messages purporting to involve Horner was leaked.

Horner said: “I’m not going to comment on anonymous, speculative messages from an unknown source.”

He added that he was “absolutely” confident he would be in his role for the entire season.

“I’ve always been entirely confident that I would be here,” he said.

“There was a full, lengthy internal process that was completed by an independent KC. And the grievance that was raised was dismissed. End of. Move on.”

An attempt to get him to say whether the messages were genuine was shut down by a Red Bull public relations handler.

Red Bull have refused to release the name of the lawyer involved or give any further the details about either the report that was compiled or how they reached their decision.

Horner’s wife Geri visited the Bahrain Grand Prix on Saturday in an apparent display of unity after the topic had dominated the days leading up to the race.

Chalerm Yoovidhya, head of the Thai family that co-owns Red Bull, was also at the race. Yoovidhya declined to answer BBC Sport’s questions.

F1’s governing body the FIA said it was discussing the matter with commercial rights holder F1 Management.

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