20/07/2014
NEWS STORY
While the FRIC saga passed without controversy, two teams considered protesting Mercedes for entirely different reasons.
Red Bull and Ferrari have both admitted that they toyed with the idea of protesting Mercedes today following the German team's decision to change the kind of brake discs used on Lewis Hamilton's car.
The decision to change from Brembo discs to the Carbon Industrie version came about following Hamilton's crash during Q1 yesterday, the cause of the incident down to the failure of his brakes.
Speaking in the wake of today's race, which saw Nico Rosberg win and teammate Lewis Hamilton finish third, having started from twentieth on the grid, Horner argued that allowing the German team to change its type of brake pad after qualifying was a change of car specification and by allowing it to happen a precedent had been set.
"It is a change of car specification," he told reporters. "If you change it like for like that is one thing, but if you change it for something that is made by a different manufacturer that has a different characteristic, as described by the driver himself as something different, then it is an interesting precedent.
"Obviously if you can do that, then what else can you change?" he added. "It will be interesting to see what the justification of that allowance was."
At Ferrari, where Fernando Alonso enjoyed numerous battles throughout the race, including a clash with his own teammate, team boss Marco Mattiacci admitted: "We discussed it internally... we decided not to move forward with it," when asked if the Italian team had considered protesting.
Check out our Sunday gallery, here.