“I think the statement by Mercedes is a little antagonistic”– Christian Horner

“I think the statement by Mercedes is a little antagonistic”– Christian Horner reacts to Mercedes’ statement on Friday attacking Red Bull.

On Friday, Mercedes chose violence with its statement release, where it specifically asked Red Bull not to malign Lewis Hamilton’s image after stewards refused to entertain the latter’s request to review Lewis Hamilton received to collide with Max Verstappen.

Mercedes reacts pic.twitter.com/40BWwYe4mW

— Will Buxton (@wbuxtonofficial) July 29, 2021

Reacting to Mercedes’ statement, the Red Bull team principal claims that the Brackley based team’s statement was a little antagonistic and refused to accept they went personal, while Mercedes claims the opposite.

Asked to respond to the statement on Friday, Horner said: “I think the statement by Mercedes is a little antagonistic, shall we say, but I don’t really read too much into it.

“It’s never been anything personal about a single driver, and it’s about the events that happened and a competition between two guys; it’s not individual to any driver.

“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 matter is over

Horner then reiterated their reasoning for pursuing a review of the decision and feels that they received a fair hearing and now find the matter resolved.

“We presented that data to the stewards. They gave us a fair hearing yesterday where we will talk through that data, the positioning of the cars, the speed of the cars,” he said.

“The fact that Lewis would have had to brake 23 metres earlier to have even made the corner. The fact that Max is on the same trajectory is identical to that of Charles Leclerc [later in the race], the result with Charles would have been identical had Lewis taken the same approach.”

“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.”

“But as far as we’re concerned, the chapter is now closed, the stewards have made their ruling and we now very much focus on this weekend and the remaining part of the championship.”

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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