Martin Brundle offered his "full support" to Sky Sports colleague Ted Kravitz as he broke his silence on Red Bull's boycott.
The team followed their driver Max Verstappen in refusing to speak to the broadcaster at the Mexican Grand Prix. It came in the wake of comments made by pit lane reporter Kravitz, to which the Dutchman took exception.
In Austin a week earlier, Kravitz suggested Lewis Hamilton had been "robbed" of the world title in 2021, when he dramatically and controversially lost out on the title in Abu Dhabi. That comment was the final straw for Red Bull, who were unhappy with a number of comments made by Sky pundits this season.
Kravitz and Sky have so far avoided addressing the situation, and instead continued their coverage without speaking to any Red Bull team member. But on Tuesday pundit and former racer Brundle weighed in on the issue by jumping to the defence of his co-worker.
"For the avoidance of doubt my friend and colleague for the past 26 years @tedkravitz has my full support," he wrote on social media. "Face to face dialogue is the only way to sort out issues and disputes in the relentless crucible of the F1 paddock. We all have opinions and different jobs to do, that's life."
After winning the race in Mexico, Verstappen told reporters exactly why he had decided not to speak to Sky. "This year has been a constant, kind of like digging and being disrespectful, especially from one particular person," he said. "At some point, it's enough, I don't accept it. You can't live in the past, you just have to move on."
His team boss Christian Horner also made his feelings clear, telling reporters : "We're disappointed with a series of derogatory comments that have been made on Sky, so we felt this weekend we would take a break, and that it wouldn't do Sky any harm, us taking a break.
"There needs to be balance in commentary. Some of the commentary is excellent, but some of the pieces... there is too much sensationalisation [sic] being done. We stand together as a team – and it's not just Sky UK, it's been across all the Sky channels in Germany and Italy."
Horner went on to confirm that the boycott was planned only for this weekend, before adding: "Accusations of a championship being 'robbed', that's not something we feel is impartial commentary. Obviously, we don't feel that is in any way fair or balanced. Max was very upset about it, and as a team we support him fully."
