Christian Horner is the Antichrist.
Christian Horner recently stated to The Telegraph that: “For your average Lewis fan I’m probably some sort of antichrist, but I make no apology for standing up for my team.” His reply comes because of the recent disproportionate hate Red Bull and himself have been getting for beating Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton for 2 years in a row.
No Michael, no!
The first blow for your average Lewis fan came during the final race of the 2021 season on the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The race started with Hamilton’s excellent start and gaining first place, only to be pressured by Verstappen on turn 6. Hamilton did not yield, and clearly cut the corner, and gained an advantage over Verstappen; despite Red Bull’s claim, no penalty was given. Hamilton increased the gap during most of the race, and was poised to become world champion, despite a very good attempt by ‘Checo’ Perez to slow down the Mercedes driver so that Verstappen could cut the gap.
People still remember the last few laps of the race; when the safety car was deployed, Red Bull keenly pitted Verstappen for new soft tires, whilst Mercedes decided to keep Hamilton’s track position with worn mediums.
Michael Masi, the race director, made a controversial decision; it ended up costing him his job due to the pressures of Toto Wolff, Mercedes, and the FIA once the season ended. He decided to override Article 48.12 of F1’s sporting regulations. The safety car procedure states that all cars must unlap the safety car before calling it in.
During the last few laps of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Masi only allowed the front cars to do so and resumed the race with the back cars still a lap under. The reason for his decision was that the race was going to end under a yellow flag. To provide a little context, during the teams debriefing on Friday prior to the start of the first practice session, everyone agreed to end the race under a green flag, if possible. It was going to be anticlimactic for the sport to see the last race of the championship, and consequently, the title, be decided under a yellow flag.
It is clearly stated in Article 15.3 that the race director is capable of overriding this rule if he sees fit. This was clearly his intention, and pressured by the upcoming last lap of the race, he decided to call in the safety car during the last lap, despite not all cars being rearranged. As mentioned earlier, everyone agreed to end the race under a green flag. Masi was later pressured to admit this as a mistake, even though clearly, the decision was made for the good of the spectacle and the back marker cars were irrelevant to the situation we were in.
A bit hypocritical by Toto, Mercedes, and your average Lewis fans to adhere vehemently to Article 48.12; the latter became pundits in record time, and caused a spike in Google’s search engine statistics. You can probably see a spike in the term ‘SaFeTy CaR RuLeZ’, mere seconds after the race ended.
"It's called motor racing." -Michael Masi
Everyone feigned outrage and regurgitated what Twitter said, and what is stated in the article, conveniently ignoring that the rules also allow for the race director to override it, if he sees fit. In the spirit of racing, and as Masi keenly replied to Toto: “It’s called motor racing, Toto!”. Even NASCAR ends up their races under green flag if possible.
The spirit of the sport is to finish the Grand Prix under ‘racing conditions’ all the time. Only a catastrophe can end up a race under a yellow flag, or without a 100% completion, like in Japan, when heavy rain caused a lot of accidents, and unfortunately, took Jules Bianchi away from us.
Having a few lapped cars that are irrelevant to the race’s context is not a situation that can force an end under safety-car conditions. Perhaps Masi’s error was not to call a red flag, but doing so during the race’s last laps was simply too unorthodox.
Another thing that might have forced Masi’s decision to override Article 48.12 was that Red Bull was already on the edge because of the steward’s lack of assertiveness by not penalizing Hamilton at the start of the race for gaining an advantage by cutting a corner.
It is a bit like in football (soccer), when a ref makes a questionable decision to one team, and ends up compensating the other later during the game. Perhaps one team scored a dodgy goal, so the ref ends up giving an easy penalty kick to the other team at the end.
Rules and regulations are made to govern the sport but not man. They are made to provide structure to the championship, but should never be a burden to the people in charge of executing them. That is why Article 15.3 was made.
Context is everything. The race was in a situation where stoically adhering to the rule in Article 48.12 would have resulted in the most anticlimactic and disappointing race in the history of Formula 1. People would have easily bashed Hamilton, Wolf, and Mercedes for being FIA favorites, a MAFIA, (Mercedes Assisted Federation International de l’Automobile’). It is a recurring meme every time Hamilton punctures someone’s tire or breaks someone’s wing, without repercussions. You can ask Alex Albon about this matter. The poor fellow’s career took a severe hit because of Hamilton robbing him of a podium finish a couple of times.
Anyhow, the race was won fair and square by Verstappen. Red Bull was keen enough to pit him for new soft tires, foreseeing a chance after the safety car was called in. It seems that only Mercedes and its customer teams were not aware of this, and the back marker teams that were so far behind that they had no clue what was going on.
Red Bull trusted its driver’s ability to overtake. Mercedes on the other hand doubted that Hamilton was capable of fighting Verstappen if he was pitted for new tires; they preferred track position over a possible fight between drivers at the end. Mercedes’ race strategist and Toto are to blame for it. They cost Hamilton his drivers’ championship. Masi ended up paying the piper, so to speak.
The most expensive shrimp in the world
The other argument your average Lewis fans use, is the fact that Red Bull went over the budget for the 2022 season by 1.6%. That is 2.3 million in a 145 million dollars budget before the UK tax credit. After applying tax credit, the real number is 0.37% or around $500,000.
Red Bull claims that the 2.3 million overspent is due to catering reasons. All staff members received free meals during the 2022 season.
Christian Horner spoke to the media when asked about catering being the reason for the breach, he said that: “Catering within Red Bull has always been a benefit that’s been provided by the group,” he also mentions that. “It’s a benefit of working within the Red Bull group that free food and beverage has always been provided. Therefore, as something of a Red Bull policy, we viewed it as an excludable cost. Aggressive, but we felt acceptable.”
Horner thinks catering should be excluded from the budget, but the FIA does not think so, he adds that: “The FIA took a different viewpoint on that and said that food was not excludable. Fair enough. But what was included was the entire catering bill of the entire company. So, £1.4 million worth of food, drink, coffees – any of you [media] that attended Milton Keynes during the last 12 months have contributed to our overspend. Red Bull Powertrains have nothing to do with Red Bull Racing, its activity this year the costs are included. So, there’s a difference of opinion on how that was applied.”
The FIA states in its report that Red Bull committed two breaches of the 2021 cost caps, one Procedural Breach and one “Minor Financial Overspend,” amounting to less than 5% of the cost cap. Red Bull were $1m-$2m in excess of the cost cap, so their break is a minor one. Also, considering the fact that after applying the UK tax credit, the real breach is about $500,000 or 0.37% (not even 1%), the argument is simply silly.
Red Bull ended up paying a very hefty fine for mere technicalities. Red Bull had to pay a $7 million fine because of the very minor breach, and it’s debatable if they did. Along with the monetary fine, there is a dark, ulterior motive; Red Bull gets 10% less time on the wind tunnel. Their ability to further develop the chassis is severely compromised.
To me the real reason behind the penalty was to hinder the team’s time on the wind tunnel. FIA wants to handicap the team in every way possible, given Red Bull’s absolute superiority during the 2022 season. Mercedes’ car was simply garbage, it suffered from heavy bouncing when no one else did, they were slow and their design philosophy with the zero-pod failed miserably.
Ferrari on the other hand, kept shooting themselves in the foot by suffering from reliability issues. Also, in terms of strategy, the team was utterly disappointing, missing chances to get wins or podiums for both drivers, simply because of a bad call in the pit box. It even got to the point that the team fitted Leclerc the wrong tires.
FIA wants the sport to be artificially close; they want the teams to have similar performances, so they sometimes make decisions like this. Another example was raising the floor, to aid Mercedes with the heavy bouncing or ‘porpoising’. Teams like Ferrari and Red Bull were not suffering from this issue, and the rule was still changed. This certainly helped Mercedes gain time lost to the other teams.
Despite FIA changing the rule, Mercedes is still lacking pace, but they don’t look as terrible as they did during the 2022 season.
To me, Red Bull ended up paying a disproportionate fine, given the fact that the overspend is not even half of a percentile, and that the allocation is questionable. It was a discrepancy in the way Red Bull and the FIA interpreted the rules. Paying $7 million for a $500,000 overspend is simply crazy. Also having a 10% reduction on wind-tunnel and aerodynamic testing is ludicrous, considering the fact that the overspend was not made on areas directly related to car performance; as mentioned before, less time on the wind tunnel is the real reason behind the draconian punishment by the FIA.
Despite this, Red Bull started the 2023 season stronger than ever. They say that they need to get as many points as possible because later during the season they will start to suffer from the 10%-time reduction on the wind tunnel. They won’t be able to develop the chassis’ aerodynamic components as they would like. Everyone at Milton Keynes hopes that early good results will mitigate the performance deficit later during the season.
Deutschland und Österreich
The average Lewis fan appeals to a false sense of patriotism when criticizing Red Bull. They seem to forget that Red Bull also has their headquarters in England, in Milton Keynes to be precise.
Apart from the fact that both Mercedes and Red Bull have their bases in British territory, the reality is that Mercedes is a German brand, and Red Bull is from Austria. Questionably enough, come the Euro Cup or any other football tournament, British folk will antagonize with Germans and Austrians alike.
Horner says that: “Of course we are Austrian-owned and we are proud of that. But we’re a British-based team with a British team principal and 85 per cent of our workforce must be British.” He also mentions that Red Bull is a British success story as well. If you think about it, Mercedes has a German team principal, so, who is more British, them or Red Bull?
A bit hypocritical to appeal to British pride every time the ‘Deutschlandlied’ sounded when Hamilton and poor old Bottas won races during Mercedes’ dominant spell. Europe seems to be one, despite Brexit whenever Mercedes wins a race. Red Bull does not seem to resonate with the British for one reason or another, perhaps it’s because Verstappen is not British.
The average Lewis fan appropriates the heritage of the ‘Silberpfeil’ in Formula 1. They think the team’s grandeur derives from British accomplishments, and forget that antagonizing Red Bull makes them look foolish. This behavior is expected somehow, as the average Lewis fan recently joined the sport and does not bother to know about its history. They care more about their driver than the heritage of their team.
They also forget how Red Bull started in this sport during the days of Minardi, and that Dietir Mateschitz has made significant contributions to Formula 1 as well. Red Bull has one of the biggest drivers’ academies in motorsport, not only in Formula 1, but in other categories as well. Its name is seen in a plethora of disciplines that go beyond motor racing.
In conclusion, winning a lot breeds hate.
Red Bull is getting hate time because they have won the last 2 championships. The same hate they are getting now is the one everyone had for Mercedes during their dominant spell. Ferrari had it during the Schumacher era. It’s not personal, it is just the way it is in most sports. Success stories later breed hate.
On the other hand, your average Lewis fan does not seem to understand this and takes the matter personally; their hate towards the ‘antichrist’ is based on weak arguments that seem reasonable on the surface; one you dig a little deeper, they become silly.
I have experienced first-hand how emotional they get whenever they talk about the 2021 season end, and how Red Bull is a team of absolute cheaters because they went over the budget. The reality is that Masi’s decision was made with the spectacle in mind, and that 2022 budget over spend was because Red Bull provides free meals to its staff.
Hopefully as the average Lewis fan grows older, and more mature, we will all get along and recognize that the ‘grandness of your success comes from the virtue of your rivals.’ It’s a symbiotic relationship where we find validation in each other.
What are your thoughts on Horner’s reaction? Did Red Bull cheat to win? Do you consider yourself an average Lewis fan? Let me know in the comments below.
Happy racing.
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