Horner: What a PR job! Seb and Lewis hate each other...
AS Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel faced the music on Thursday and insisted their spat at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was water under the bridge, Christian Horner looked on with a smile. As Red Bull team principal for more than a decade, Horner has handled his fair share of controversies and can sense animosity between the title rivals.
‘You can’t believe that press conference,’ said Horner. ‘It was just a PR show to keep the FIA happy. I’m sure they were both under strict instructions.
‘At this point in time they hate each other because they are in each other’s way of achieving their goal. But it would be far better to be upfront about it instead of hiding behind PR speak.
‘It would be more entertaining for the fans. There needs to be rivalry.’
Up until lap 19 in Baku a fortnight ago, relations between Hamilton and Vettel had been cordial this season.
But feeling Hamilton had ‘braketested’ him ahead of a safety car restart — telemetry proved otherwise — Vettel pulled alongside him and steered into his Mercedes.
In that moment the dynamic between them changed irrecoverably, with Hamilton labelling the German ‘a disgrace’ in the aftermath.
With seven world titles between them, Horner believes it now has everything required to become one of the sport’s great rivalries. ‘It has all the ingredients,’ said Horner. ‘There has been very little to choose between them this season and they are very different characters.
‘Vettel typifies that Germanic precision. He works hard and is fiercely private. On the other side is the very flamboyant, naturally gifted, almost popstar-style character that is Lewis. Hopefully it will only get juicier in the second half of the season.
‘Some of the greatest racing I saw growing up was the rivalry between Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost. The sport needs heroes and villains so the fans can choose.’
Vettel was undoubtedly the latter in Baku after his moment of madness. The German won all four of his world titles driving a Red Bull, where he spent six seasons under Horner’s guidance from 2009.
Horner said the Baku incident was evidence of Vettel’s ‘fierce competitiveness’, which has only increased since he made his move to Ferrari, where he is under pressure to deliver a first drivers’ title since 2007. ‘It was a red mist moment,’ said Horner. ‘Emotions are running high, there’s a lot at stake for the world championship and, as the season progresses, the tension increases.
‘Sebastian wears his heart on his sleeve. He has a very endearing personality on the one side and on
the other he’s a ruthless competitor. He wants it so badly occasionally you’ll see a reaction like that one.
‘That burning ambition is part of his character and it’s why he won four world titles for us. But what we’ve seen at Ferrari is more extreme than it was at Red Bull. We never saw anything like that.’
Horner’s team were the chief benefactors of Hamilton and Vettel’s squabble, where Daniel Ricciardo secured the team’s first victory since the Malaysian Grand Prix last October.
That win means the team enter back-to-back home races on a high. The first of those is at Austria’s Red Bull Ring today, before next weekend’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone, just down the road from their Milton Keynes base. It is expected that Silverstone’s owners, the British Racing Drivers’ Club, will invoke a break clause in their contract before the teams arrive for this year’s renewal. They have a deal in place to host the race until 2026. But their fee — currently £18million per year — rises by five per cent annually, meaning that, despite Hamilton’s victory there 12 months ago being watched by 139,000 spectators, the event lost money.
Triggering the clause will plunge the future of the race into doubt beyond 2019.
The BRDC are confident of securing a better deal but Horner has a warning. ‘If they pull out and try to renegotiate, it’s a high-risk strategy as there are other venues queuing up for a race,’ he said.
‘There has been an element of mismanagement or poor negotiating originally if they have a sell out and still lose money. I can’t envisage a time when a British Grand Prix isn’t on the calendar but Silverstone may not be.
‘I’m sure Liberty (F1’s owners) would love to see a London Grand Prix, so they need to be careful what they wish for.’