Christian Horner defends Mark Webber over legality claims remarks – Formula 1 news
Christian Horner defends Mark Webber’s angry response in his press conference over the illegal car jibes.
Red Bull had introduced floor holes in their car RB8 near the rear tyres. The holes caused a reaction from teams like Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes who believed that they were illegal as they did not conform to the regulations set forth by the FIA.
FIA however cleared the car at the Bahrain Grand Prix when the floor holes were first introduced. The race was won by Sebastian Vettel. Then the car passed all the tests after the Monaco Grand Prix which was won by Webber.
The FIA however have changed the rules after the Monaco Grand Prix and the floor holes are now deemed illegal.
Webber said on Thursday that “claims he won in an illegal car” “really pisses me off.”
Red Bull principal Christian Horner defended Webber’s remarks and said “I think Mark’s comments are understandable,” Horner said. “He won Monaco fair and square first of all; the car complied with the rules, it complied with scrutineering. Teams have a right to protest if they felt that it contravened in any way - no team chose to do that. Since then there’s obviously been a bit of debate as to what’s a hole and what’s a boundary surface and so on. The clarification - as we expected - is the right way to have dealt with the issue.”
He added that the rule has been clarified since Monte Carlo and the team going into the Canadian GP had a planned update of the car which did not include floor holes anyway so it is not really effected by the rule change.
Horner went on to say that even if both Red Bull drivers are tied at second place he is not worried that a repeat of 2010 will take place. In 2010 both the drivers were in a similar situation and in the hunt for the title friction was developed between the two.
It will be interesting to see how the season progresses for Red Bull as the competitiveness in the season remains to be at a challenge for most teams.
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