Formula 1 and the FIA have been told they must satisfy Red Bull’s rivals that the team have handled the allegations facing Christian Horner correctly.
Red Bull Racing owner Red Bull Austria announced on Wednesday it had concluded an investigation into claims made by a female staff member about Horner’s behaviour and cleared him. However rival team bosses said the sport’s authorities need to verify Red Bull has handled the matter properly.
“It’s the responsibility ultimately of the organisers of Formula 1, the owners of Formula 1, to make sure that all the racing teams and the personnel and the drivers and everyone involved in this sport are operating in a manner which we all live by,” said McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown yesterday.
“I don’t think it’s the teams’ roles and responsibilities. It’s up to FIA and Formula 1 to ultimately decide, and to ask what they feel gives them the level of transparency that they need to ultimately come to their conclusion and we just have to count on them that they fulfil that obligation to all of us.”
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said F1 “cannot afford to leave things in the vague and in the opaque on critical topics like this, because this is going to catch us out.
“We are in a super transparent world. Eventually things are going to happen and I think we have the duty, or the organisation has the duty, to say ‘we’ve looked at it and it’s okay’ and then we can move on.
“I think it’s sometimes very short-sighted to try and suppress it, but not saying this has happened, we’re standing from the outside and looking at it, but just looking at statements or press releases or timelines, it just seems that it’s not as modern as things go in this world, in the real world out there. But maybe in Formula 1, we just have a little bubble and we think that’s okay.”
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Later on Thursday, after the pair had spoken, a collection of images purporting to show message exchanges between Horner and the team member were leaked. The alleged revelations sparked enormous international attention and appeared on the front pages of some newspapers this morning.
Horner has repeatedly denied the allegations and stated he intends to focus on the team’s start to the season in Bahrain. However during Friday’s final practice session he was seen leaving the Red Bull pit wall to meet with FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem.
Brown and Wolff said their teams have…
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