Verbal jousting between Mercedes and Red Bull team principals has featured flashes of anger and mutual dislike
Formula One has sometimes failed to fire the imagination in recent years, but the duel between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen has gripped fans across the world and evoked the sport’s most compelling rivalries.
While the drivers have fought on the track across 21 races before Sunday’s showdown in Abu Dhabi, the Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff, and his Red Bull counterpart, Christian Horner, have acted as figureheads for their respective teams. When they speak it is not only for the drivers but the pit crews, engineers and mechanics, designers and hundreds of factory staff.