Christian Horner has denied Zak Brown’s claims that the FIA should be looking into Red Bull’s ownership of both the namesake team and the newly-rebranded VCARB outfit.
The McLaren CEO raised concerns with Red Bull’s ownership of a second team in the wake of the MCL38 launch event, insisting that affects the ‘level playing field’ between the 10 teams on the grid.
“I can tell you from sitting in the FIA… F1 Commission meetings, the voting is always the same even when, in theory, it shouldn’t be in one of the teams’ best interests,” he noted. “We’ve seen it on track, some collaborations going on.
“And then technically, they’ve been very forthright in ‘we’re going to take the suspension’, etcetera and a definition of a constructor is a team who develops their own IP.
“I just think the sport has now moved on to an equal playing field, so to have A-B relationships, to have co-ownership of two teams I think isn’t a level playing field. It’s not what the fans expect and so the FIA really needs to do something about it.”
These comments were pitted to Horner during Thursday’s press conference at the Sakhir International Circuit, and the team principal was stout in his defence of VCARB’s ownership structure.
“I don’t understand the fuss about it,” he explained. “I don’t understand the noise that’s being created about it. And I think Red Bull should actually be applauded for the support and the commitment and the jobs that they’ve provided through the good times, and particularly the bad times. So for me, it really is a non-issue.”
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