Horner reproaches his rivals for making too much of a fuss about clowning around

While some of his competitors strongly complain about the “porpoising”, Christian Horner believes that the safety of the drivers is not really in danger since only certain teams are affected by this issue.

“I think that if it were a real safety issue across the entire grid, then it is something that should be looked into,” explains the boss of Red Bull. “But if it only affects isolated individuals or teams, it is something that this team should potentially handle. It would seem unfair to penalize those who have done a decent job compared to those who may have slightly missed the target.”

George Russell, notably as the president of the Drivers’ Association (GPDA), is calling for change to address the danger of bottoming out and ensure the safety of the drivers. The young British Mercedes driver wants cars to no longer be allowed to run so low.

When The Race asked Christian Horner if some drivers were exaggerating the difficulties of driving to bring about these changes, the Red Bull boss didn’t hesitate.

« Of course, yes. You can see that it’s uncomfortable – but there are solutions to that. However, it comes at the expense of the car’s performance. The simplest thing to do is to complain from a safety standpoint, but each team has a choice. » assures Horner.

But the Brit does not judge his opponents and believes that he would have done the same thing with his drivers in their place. « I would tell them to complain as much as they could on the radio and make it the biggest problem possible. That’s part of the game. » says the boss of the bull’s team.

George Russell was keen to respond to him after the Azerbaijan Grand Prix by assuring that nobody was exaggerating about the difficulty of driving these cars on bumpy tracks. “Nobody is trying to say that to gain an advantage, you have the Ferrari drivers and even Max said how difficult it was,” replied Russell.