Christian Horner has his say on Zak Brown poking fun at the British outfit via his water bottle during F1 Miami GP, as Toto Wolff backs McLaren.
Seeing the advantage of McLaren especially in using the tyres in a way that they face less degradation in hot conditions, rival F1 teams raised a query about an unusual trick. It was Red Bull in particular, who felt the British outfit is using some kind of water trick to keep the temperatures cool enough.
Nothing was protested officially as the FIA didn’t see any unusual trick either. In a banter, McLaren chief Zak Brown poked fun at Red Bull by using a water bottle named ‘Tire Water’ during the F1 Miami GP. The moment was captured on the world feed when the American sipped water from it.
Brown wanted to poke some fun and asked Red Bull to formally protest if they feel McLaren has a trick under their sleeve which is outside the regulations. So far, Red Bull hasn’t. But Christian Horner stuck to his ground. It was reported that the team used thermal imaging to assess the trick.
It is unclear if they have evidence at hand, but Horner noted that McLaren being at the top of the field, it is inevitable that its F1 rivals will try to find ways to dislodge it. Mercedes’ Toto Wolff backed its customer team, though, denying that there is any ‘cheating’ on their end.
Brown: “[The water bottle] was poking fun at a serious issue, which is teams have historically made allegations of other teams. Most recently, one team focuses on that strategy more than others. There’s a proper way to protest a team at the end of the race, and you have to make it formal, disclose where it comes from, put some money down. I think that process should be extended to all allegations to stop the frivolous allegations which are intended only to be a distraction.
“So if you had to put up some money and put on paper and not backchannel what your allegations are, I think that would be a way to clean up the bogus allegations that happened in this sport, which are not very sporting. And if someone does believe there’s a technical issue, by all means you’re entitled to it. Put it on paper, put your money down. It should come against your cost cap if it turns out you’re wrong, and I think that will significantly stop the bogus allegations that come from some teams in the sport.”
Horner: “Of course in Formula 1 there is always going to be questions that are raised. They [McLaren] did exactly the same about the front suspension on our car last year. So, it’s inevitable when you’re running at the front as we have for the last few years, you always come under more scrutiny. So that’s part and parcel of Formula 1. And in many respects for the FIA, all of the teams do the vast majority of the work because, of course, their resource is far greater and there’s always a competitor analysis going on across all of the teams. So, that is part and parcel of Formula 1. It is important to understand obviously, I mean McLaren are the standout car, they have the same kind of advantage that we saw a couple of years ago and they’re obviously doing a very good job in managing temperatures.
“If you look at the medium stint in Miami, at the end of the medium tyre stint, that was probably where they were the most competitive, so that’s what we need to focus on. I don’t think there’s a eureka moment, but I think it’s very fine, because if you look at Jeddah, the race pace and the degradation we had there was better than, or at least the same and marginally better than McLaren. Two weeks later, they haven’t bought a huge amount or a different car specification. It’s more circuit-specific that has exposed these issues. I think the braking issues that we’ve had have compounded our issue because then you lose control of… everything just runs too hot.”
Wolff: “I think that the team around Zak, Andrea, Rob Marshall… these are good people with integrity. If in the past, we often say: ‘Well, let’s look at whether there’s something borderline’, but I have no doubt that these guys stay within the rules. It’s just really good development – that car. They’ve understood how to manage the tyre much better than everybody else and, in my opinion, it’s totally legit. Also, from a team management point of view, we should never… when somebody is doing a better job than you, we should not look at that and say: ‘They’re cheating’, because that’s not the right attitude anyway. So we just need to become better and eventually not [lose] 30 or 35 seconds over 57 laps.”
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