“The time has come for that to stop,” Christian Horner asks for an end to the public backlash against Red Bull
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Christian Horner (IMAGO / HochZwei)
Far before the FIA confirmed that Red Bull had breached the budget cap – there were already rumours saying that they had done so (along with Aston Martin), and that they had committed that more ‘major’ breach. Of course, it was still a minor breach, of $2.2 million, somewhere around 1.6% over the budget cap. But without a tax error by the team, it would amount to only about 0.37 percent.
Their punishment is a $7 million fine, and a 10% reduction in their aerodynamic development time. Christian Horner called this penalty ‘draconian’, while McLaren, Ferrari, and Mercedes all felt it was lenient. While the penalty has been expected, Horner wants an investigation on how the news had leaked to the public, before even the team were ‘officially’ informed of it (which happened post-Japanese GP).
As per Motorsport.com, The Red Bull team principal called the accusations ‘extremely upsetting’: “The accusations made in Singapore were extremely upsetting for every single member of staff, all our partners, everyone involved within Red Bull. Obviously, any form of leakage is hugely worrying. It’s something that we expect to be followed up.”
Christian Horner: “We’ve taken a very public pounding”
McLaren’s team principal, Zak Brown, had written a letter to the FIA, asking for a severe penalty for the budget cap infringement, in which he had said: “The overspend breach, and possibly the procedural breaches, constitute cheating by offering a significant advantage across technical, sporting and financial regulations.” and asking for a 20% reduction in wind tunnel time, in addition to proposing rule changes.
For this, Christian Horner feels the team are due an apology, and that Red Bull themselves don’t need to apologize, as there was ‘no intent’, or anything ‘dishonest’, but conceded that there are some lessons to be learned from the whole affair: “I think there are lessons that have been learned. Everybody can learn from this.”
Horner asked for an end to the allegations made against the team, in addition to other things: “We’ve taken our pounding in public, we’ve taken a very public pounding, through the accusations that have been made by other teams. Our drivers have been booed at circuits. And the reputational damage that has been made by allegations has been significant. The time has come for that to stop.”
While Brown asked for a 20% wind tunnel time reduction, there were some who asked for a far more severe penalty. Indeed, many fans felt that Red Bull should have been disqualified from last year’s championship – which was the most closely contested in many years. But that was always a long shot.
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Aniket Tripathi
(1002 Articles Published)