Christian Horner assured that he has "zero concerns" about Red Bull's suspected irregularities in the floorboards and took the opportunity to punt at rival Mercedes: "Aren't they referring to the cars around them right now?"
The suspicion that Red Bull has a more flexible floor than allowed by the Formula 1 2022 regulations has left rivals with a flea behind their ears, but has not affected Christian Horner at all. The Taurus boss, in fact, said that it is all just "total nonsense".
It all started when, still in Canada, a meeting of the Technical Advisory Committee raised suspicions that teams such as Ferrari and Red Bull were cheating the regulation by flexing floors and boards above the allowed 2 mm - some reaching 6 mm, increasing performance without the risk of suffering from knocks. Mercedes boss Toto Wolff even said it was "shocking" to say the least.
The leader of the Constructors' World Championship is the team that suffers the least from kicks and manages to keep the car very close to the ground, taking advantage of all the aerodynamic gain of the return of the ground effect to the category. Horner was then asked by Sky Sports if the flexible floor was the secret to the near absence of porpoising in the RB18, but dismissed the idea. "That's total nonsense. I think we are confusing our problems here."
The Englishman then assured that he has "zero" worries about the rivals' suspicions and didn't miss the opportunity to take a pinprick at Wolff. "Is he not referring to the cars that are around him at the moment? I have no idea, but we don't have any problems or concerns on our radar," he stressed.
Yesterday, the FIA announced some major changes to the regulations, including a readjustment of the budget ceiling, confirmation of the 2023 preseason outside Europe, and also postponed to Belgium the application of the technical directive to control car quits. On the metric specifically, Horner feels that more discussion is still needed on the subject, especially since Silverstone showed a very different scenario, with cars bouncing much less.
"I think that needs to be discussed in the Technical Working Group, which is the right forum for that. At Silverstone, no cars were really affected by this [the porpoising], so the question is: is it the competitor's duty to ensure that their car is safe or the FIA's duty to ensure that the competitor can drive the car safely?" he concluded.