25/07/2014
NEWS STORY
Christian Horner hit out at the media today claiming that negativity being aimed at team bosses should be directed at Bernie Ecclestone and Jean Todt.
The first part of the official press conference, hosted by veteran Bob Constanduros, was pretty much business as usual, the assembled team bosses agreeing with one another and opting to remain on the fence wherever possible.
However, things took a turn for the worse when the floor was thrown open to the gathered media.
A question about the FIA's decision to allow McLaren to change its brakes ahead of the German Grand Prix, thereby setting a precedent, passed without any problems, but then came a question about whether the sport should still be heading to Russia in light of recent events.
Having made it clear that they were contractually bound to take part in races, that they didn't get involved in politics and that they relied on the FIA and Commercial Rights Holder to take care of such things, the team bosses sat back feeling the matter had been dealt with.
But then followed a question about the low turnout in Germany, followed by another about CVC loading the sport with debt before selling out next year, feathers on the dais clearly ruffled.
Returning to the subject of Russia, the team bosses were then asked about today's confirmation that F1 is heading to Azerbaijan, the journalist asking if the sport is happy to continue visiting countries with poor records in terms of Human Rights, would the teams be willing to follow Bernie Ecclestone to North Korea. Ouch!
Following a brief, stunned, silence, Vijay Mallya replied: "We're racing people, more popularly known as petrol heads. We come here to race and to win and to enjoy it. The governance is an international organisation called the FIA. It is up to the FIA to decide where the sport is conducted. I don't think that the teams, individual participants in the sport, should be holding their individual positions to determine social political issues that you have raised. The FIA is perfectly competent to determine where Formula One should be staged and not be staged.
"It's a not question of following Bernie," he added. "I think the question has been wrongly framed. It's the commercial rights holder, it's the FIA. We race where they stage the events. It's as simple as that."
However, when Christoph Becker of Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung asked: "Do you think that it does your product a lot of good going to Baku, given their human rights record?", Christian Horner finally lost patience.
"This is becoming a very depressing press conference as we're only focusing on the negativities," he said. "Look, there's a calendar that comes out in October or November. We all have a choice whether we enter the World Championship or not. All the people sitting here are racers and they're here because they're passionate about the sport and they want to compete. When we sign up for that championship, we put our faith and trust in the promoter and the FIA and we will attend those races unless they deem it unnecessary for us to be there.
"All of you will be at those races, or the vast majority of you will be at those races and why, because you're either passionate about the sport or because you earn a living out of covering the sport and I think it's wrong to make Formula One a political statement or subject when we are a sport.
"We should be talking about the drivers in these conferences, we should be talking about the spectacular racing that happened between our drivers and his (Marco Mattiacci's) driver at the last Grand Prix. We should be talking about what a great race it was for Lewis Hamilton to come through the grid, yet all we do is focus on the negatives and it has to be said, it gets pretty boring for us to sit up here and field these questions. So how about asking some questions about what's going to happen in the race on Sunday, what's going to happen in qualifying tomorrow, because if you've got these questions, please point them at Mr Todt or Mr Ecclestone rather than the teams."
Fact is, these questions do need to be asked, and perhaps Mr Ecclestone and Mr Todt should make themselves available at one of the forthcoming events in order to publicly answer them.
In recent days Ecclestone has made a number of glib comments to the media however, the fact is a lot of people are still very unhappy with the current situation and if this starts to filter through to the people who hold the purse strings - the sponsors - the Commercial Rights Holder may find himself on shaky ground.
If nothing else, today's line of questioning actually got a reaction.
Check out our Friday gallery, here.
Chris Balfe