Red Bull responds to Mercedes statement: "A little antagonistic"

Red Bull doesn't quite understand statement

"I think the statement by Mercedes is a little antagonistic, shall we say, but I don’t really read too much into it", Horner is quoted by The Race in the team bosses' press conference after the first free practice session. Red Bull's top man refutes that all its statements and the final appeal were aimed at the person Lewis Hamilton. "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."

According to Horner, Red Bull would have reacted in the same way if any other driver in Formula 1 had committed the same infringement as Hamilton. "If that had been any other driver the reaction would have been identical so I was a little surprised by the Mercedes comments, but we’ve put that behind us and our focus is very much on track.”

The hearing, which included delegates from Red Bull and Mercedes, took place on Thursday afternoon. The stewards did not consider the new points made by the Austrian racing stable as sufficient evidence to reopen the case. What exactly did Red Bull discuss? According to Horner, Hamilton should have braked 23 metres earlier to even make the corner at Copse. Furthermore, it was the case that Verstappen was in the same spot on the track as later Charles Leclerc in the race. If Hamilton had done the same there, Leclerc would have ended up in the tyre stacks too.

Horner accepts decision

“So we presented that data, we feel that we had a fair hearing, the stewards felt that it wasn’t new evidence, under the confines of the regulations, and so it wasn’t opened into another hearing. We accept that. This competition is all about marginal gains, leaving no stone unturned and of course when you have an accident of that velocity and impact, of course you’re going to make a full investigation," Horner concluded.