Former Red Bull team principal and CEO Christian Horner liked a post by Max Verstappen's girlfriend, Kelly Piquet, on social media. The Brit gave the Dutch driver his first opportunity in the sport after he was signed on with Toro Rosso at the start of the 2015 season and was eventually brought in to the senior team in the middle of the 2016 season.The pair had arguably one of the strongest team principal-driver partnerships in the paddock as Horner decided to build the car around Verstappen quite early in their tenure. The 51-year-old was also staunch in his defence of the Dutchman for his on-track actions and kept the blame away from him.However, the dynamic soured a little over the past 18 months, leading up to Horner's exit from the team at the end of the British Grand Prix last month, owing to internal conflicts and the Austrian team's inability to turn around the performance of the RB21.The move has also coincided with Max Verstappen having a lean patch on the track, which was evident during the Hungarian Grand Prix before the summer break. During the three-week-long break, Verstappen was spotted enjoying his time on the sea with his family and friends.On her social media platform Instagram, Kelly Piquet posted a beautiful image of herself sharing a kiss with Max Verstappen by the seaside and wrote:"Summer Blues 🩵" View this post on Instagram Instagram PostThe post got numerous likes from her followers, including one from Christian Horner.Snapshot of Christian Horner's like on Piquet's post...Credits-InstagramAround the time of Horner's sacking, reports were claiming that the four-time F1 world champion might leave Red Bull for Mercedes for the 2026 season, but the 27-year-old decided to honor his contract and stick with the Milton Keynes-based outfit.F1 pundit chimes in on the significance of Max Verstappen's role post-Horner's sackingFormer F1 driver and pundit Perry McCarthy stated that he believed that Max Verstappen's role within Red Bull had become 15 times more crucial following Christian Horner's sacking.Speaking with RacingNews365, the former Andrea Moda driver said:"I think if you were to spell crucial in capital letters, and then multiply it by 15, you'd have somewhere near the answer. Because Max, it can be easily argued, is the best driver in the world at this moment in time. "His ability is astounding, and his mental capacity is incredible, but the caveat here is that I'm not in love with all the things he does on track sometimes, but that is one side of it. If you look at his talent and his mental ability, it is absolutely incredible, and I would hasten to add that Max is very much one of the best of all-time."Max Verstappen's deal with the Austrian team expires at the end of the 2028 season, but performance clauses could see him depart the team as early as 2027.