Red Bull Racing boss Horner claims Webber’s ‘disobedience’ will not affect his 2012 deal – Formula 1
Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner has said that the team is currently in the middle of a deal with Mark Webber for the 2012 Formula 1 season and that the Australian driver’s ‘disobedience’ during the British Grand Prix will not affect the negotiation
in any way.
“At the end of the day it's about the team. I can understand sometimes that a driver will be frustrated with an instruction, but my responsibility is to ensure that the team optimised its result. There would have been absolutely no benefit in both cars coming
back on a tow truck,” said Horner.
During the race at Silverstone, the team asked Webber to slow down behind his teammate Sebastian Vettel during the last couple of laps in order to avoid any sort of incident.
The team passed this order to the Australian driver a number of times but he did not act upon it and kept pushing right behind the reigning world champion for the 2nd place until the end of the race.
Webber also stated that he was not okay with the team asking him to ‘hold station’ during the race as even though they are teammates, they are still supposed to race each other for the drivers’ title.
As a result of these statements by the Aussie and his ‘disobedience’ to the team orders during the race, Horner stated that the negotiation regarding Webber’s deal for the 2012 Formula 1 season should not be affected.
“It was obvious that neither was going to concede and, as we saw with Massa and Hamilton at the last corner when they made contact, it made absolutely no sense from the team's point of view to allow them to continue to fight over that last couple of laps,”
said the team boss.
On the other hand, Flavio Briatore, Mark Webber’s manager agreed with Horner and added that the drivers are in the end driving for the team and when they are driving for the world championship, they should try to respect their team decision and try to secure
the best possible result for them without any risk.
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