Today is Thursday – and the world is still turning – I am still being held down by gravity – check, check and check.
Following their disappointing display in the season’s opening F1 event in Australia, Christian Horner and Helmut Marko called for something to be done and the rules of the sport be changed to prevent Mercedes engine dominance.
The response from Red Bull’s peers was unsympathetic and at times dismissive.
Toto Wolff’s response was curt to say the least, “Just get your fucking head down, work hard and try to sort it out,” was his advice to Horner.
Live on daytime TV in Australia, Lewis Hamilton smiled and suggested Red Bull could solve their problems if they “hire better people”.
Red Bull’s engine partner then piled further ignominy on the team from Milton Keynes, by accusing them of ‘lies’ and Newey being “too old to change” from a lifetimes habit of criticizing his engine partners.
Possibly scalded by the universal condemnation heaped upon him and his team, Christian Horner today recants to Autosport.
“When you’re in a scenario like we are, where you have very limited influence over the engine – we’re effectively a customer – it’s frustrating when your competitiveness is compromised and you don’t have control over that”
“Is that [equalisation] likely to happen? Of course it’s not. Is it fundamentally right for it to happen? Probably not either.
“I was frustrated with the situation, but we also have a fairly unhealthy situation if you’ve got huge disparity between the different power units.
“The problem with where we’re at – at the moment is that the technology is pretty immature.
“The investment required by Renault to match Mercedes is enormous.”
It’s hardly an apology – but baby steps huh Christian?
It sounds as though the realisation is dawning on Horner that his once dominant quadruple world title winning team is going to be up against it for the longer rather than the shorter term.
The light may well have come on in Christian’s mind following the stinging attacks in the week from Renault, who suffered public criticism week after week from Marko and Horner.
This is not the first time the Red Bull team principal has had to deal with global humiliation. Following the race here two years ago in Sepang, many were critical of his inability to assert his authority over Sebastian Vettel in the now infamous multi 21 affair with Mark Webber.
Miracles do happen – more likely it just a bout of pragmatism that has taken over Horner following the universal condemnation and belittling he and the Red bull team received after threatening to quit Formula One if they didn’t get their way.
We shall see if Horner has taken marriage counselling advice, when he faces Renault Sport F1’s CEO, Cyril Abiteboul, in the FIA team principal press conference tomorrow.
“When you’re in a scenario like we are, where you have very limited influence over the engine – we’re effectively a customer”…..
Really Christian?…..
Well I guess this is one of those moments where the customer isn’t always right.
The Spice Boys still had “very limited influence over the engine” during 4 years of utter domination, yet I can’t remember the Styrian lads complaining about it then. When Renault was getting it all right and way better than the opposition to blow the rear of their fingery boy, the Spice Boys were for some reason hiding Renault in the closet and instead flaunting Infiniti. Why no praise then for excellent engine performance, and interminable complaints now when performance is lacking?
They still finished 2nd behind the utterly dominant Mercs last year… And had the 3 only non-Merc wins. That wasn’t that bad, wasn’t it? If they really wanted to help Viry-Chatillon raise their game, they would have heaped development funds onto them…
Horner wants Renault to immediately blow through the extra tokens and start winning races. Renault knows in the coming years the slow burn of the tokens when Mercedes are spent and Ferrari are spent they will just be getting a handle on the tech. Mercedes will be crying they are using 2 years old technology in their PU’s and Renault will look like heroes.
+1
Also wonder if there is some Spice girl influence at work.
Just noticed this article was indexed at newsnow, congrats! This will help you grow!
If their influence led them to run an untested engine with the results we know, maybe they should have even less influence…he is really coming across like an a-hole.