Red Bull driver Max Verstappen has joked the only “good” thing about having Donald Trump on the Miami grid was that people were interested in the former US president and not him. Formula 1 was heavily criticised after pictures and videos emerged showing the Republican leader having a leisurely stroll across the pit lane with his ‘Make America Great Again’ cap, amid the plethora of court cases against him.
Speaking at a post-race press conference, Verstappen said he found a huge silver lining in Trump’s Formula 1 outing.
“It’s good everyone looks at him, you know, and then they don’t bother me,” Max Verstappen told Canal+.
Trump, who lives in Florida, was among the several VIPs to descend to the race track and the paddock in Miami. He was seen interacting with McLaren’s Lando Norris while posing for photos with team chief executive Zak Brown in the pit lane outside the garage.
McLaren issue statement
Amid the online criticism, McLaren issued a statement saying that the organisation was honoured to host Trump at the request of the FIA boss.
“McLaren is a non-political organisation, however, we recognise and respect the office of President of the United States so when the request was made to visit our garage on race day we accepted alongside the president of the FIA and the CEO’s of Liberty Media and Formula 1,” read the statement.
“We were honoured that McLaren Racing was chosen as the representative of F1 which gave us the opportunity to showcase the world-class engineering that we bring to motorsport,” it added.
Trump met Norris after the race and said he was the McLaren driver’s ‘lucky charm’ as the Briton won his first Formula 1 race when he came to the paddock.
“He said he was my lucky charm because it’s my win, so I don’t know if he’s going to come to more races now. But there’s a lot of special people or cool people that have been here this weekend. Donald is someone that you got to have a lot of respect for in many ways,” said Norris.
Trump, one of the most polarising figures in the US, has been on the campaign trail to secure a second term as the president. He is the presumptive GOP nominee and is set to go up against Joe Biden later this year.
