Christian Horner says the statement released by Mercedes following Red Bull’s failed attempt to review Lewis Hamilton’s penalty from Silverstone was “a little antagonistic”.
Mercedes communicated on Thursday that it hopes Red Bull’s senior management will put an end to its attempts “to tarnish the good name and sporting integrity of Lewis Hamilton”.
Red Bull was seeking a harsher penalty for Hamilton after he was involved in a collision with Max Verstappen at the British Grand Prix two weeks ago.
Verstappen retired from the race after sustaining a 51G impact with the barriers, while Hamilton went on to take his eighth home victory, despite being issued a 10-second time penalty.
Responding to Mercedes’ most recent statement, Horner said: “The statement by Mercedes is a little antagonistic shall we say.
“I don’t really read too much into it. It’s never been anything personal about a single driver. It’s about the events that happened and a competition between two guys, it’s not individual to any driver.
“If that had been any driver the reaction would have been identical. I was a little surprised at Mercedes’ comments.
“We put that behind us and our focus is very much on track and obviously try to build on the momentum that we’ve taken after the sprint race in Silverstone.”
Horner clarified that his post-race criticism from Silverstone was not a personal attack on Hamilton, affirming he would’ve had the same reaction with any other driver involved.
“It was absolutely not a personal attack on Lewis Hamilton,” Horner said.
“Lewis Hamilton is a seven-time world champion and everything that he has achieved stands for itself. If it was any other competitor on the grid, we would have taken the same issue in the manner that we did.
“I think that I’m entitled to an opinion on that incident, as is everybody else. Obviously at the time, emotions are running high.
“We’ve got a driver needing to be taken to hospital for precautionary checks after an accident which would have definitely knocked out your average human being.
“We’d lost the car in its entirety under a budget cap environment for something the stewards didn’t deem to be Max’s fault.
“So there’s nothing personal about it, but even a seven-time world champion can make mistakes, or misjudgements.”
“We’d lost the car in its entirety under a budget cap environment …. for something the stewards didn’t deem to be Max’s fault.” Not what the Stewards actually said in their statement!
Maybe I’m too simple, but. One driver was in the lead, gave room. The other driver was not in the lead, hit the rear tire of the lead car, because he couldn’t hold his line. The guy not at fault went to the hospital, wrecked car, and no points. The other car, won the race, a function of a ridiculously inappropriate penalty. Isn’t it ironic that merc team talked about a DNF for the championship leading driver before the race and wow, a DNF.
Joe, you clearly have not read the rules regarding how competing drivers adjacent to each other have to act going through corners. In their ruling the stewards stated the cars were “…considered to be adjacent to each other…” This means both need to provide sufficient room for each to get through corner safely and that “…the inside car has the right to the racing line.” Verstappen had two car widths clear to the outside, Hamilton had one half width and, according to regulations, felt being on the inside, he had the line. Verstappen made no effort to give space, but assumed that Hamilton would brake hard to avoid a collision, as Hamilton and other drivers had done for Verstappen in previous races this year. At 180 mph a car cannot just disappear from the space it occupies. Verstappen cut in and ran his tire over Hamilton’s. We know the rest. By the way, every active F1 driver believes it was a racing incident not worthy of a penalty. Later in the race, Hamilton made two more passes through the same corner. Contrary to Horner, other drivers over the years, made passes there as well. Had Verstappen given one half car width, both would have come out of the corner. After Hamilton’s 7 world titles, Horner calls him desperate and amateurish. Really??? Who is the desperate one here?