Red Bull’s Christian Horner recently quoted in the press a direct comparison between Liberty Media and the previous ‘arrangement’, being one Bernard Charles Ecclestone.
In it he laments the era of total decision making and is quoted as saying that “Liberty are trying to operate in a democratic way” and that in comparison, “Bernie controlled a tight ship”, albeit when describing the issues of leaking more say toward race promoters and circuit owners.
“Well, you would have never heard a promoter talk out about Bernie, because they wouldn’t have had a grand prix the following year!” commends ‘Spice boy’ Horner about the former ringmaster.
“I think one thing Liberty finds frustrating is a lot of this business is conducted through the media. That’s something they’re not used to with American sport.”
An important paragraph. In many ways Horner is correct, it is now very clear that Liberty are teethless, and at the head of the organisation is a inept leader in Chase Carey. If you don’t believe me, just listen to his interview in the player below.
Still, Horner is likely applying his own logic of politicking via the media by emphasising exactly where Liberty are going wrong.
“There’s that constant comparison of American sport and franchises versus Formula 1 — American sport works in America, it doesn’t work globally.” continues Horner.
“Formula 1, the learning curve they’ve had is that it has a different appeal in different markets. It’s still one of the biggest sports in the world and you can’t necessarily just apply a US sports approach to something that’s already 60, 70 years old as a global world championship.”
After his history lesson to the American, cliché, Horner could well be sending his message in the media to Liberty with one eye on the high likelihood that Honda will not be equal by any stretch to Mercedes and Ferrari come 2021.
“The more concerning question is what is their blueprint, both financially and regulatory in line with the FIA, for what they want Formula 1 to be from 2021 onwards.” says Horner.
“It already looks like the engine will stay the same and that’s obviously been a fundamental issue over the last four or five years so we need to ensure that engines don’t become an enormous performance differentiator like we’ve had in the early periods of this hybrid era.”
There we have it. Red Bull did do a big U’y when it came to pushing for the simplification of the 2021 Power Unit regulations, funnily enough as soon as Honda came on board.
Now the message is Liberty must even up the manufacturers engines, we need to ensure Honda are not being left behind. Well, from Red Bull’s point of view that is.
Long live Bernie?
