13/04/2015
NEWS STORY
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has defended owner Dietrich Mateschitz' threat to walk away from the sport.
Ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix weekend, the Austrian, not known for talking to the media, admitted that unless his team became more competitive he would consider withdrawing from the sport.
While some see this as the tantrum of a bad loser, a 'toys out of the pram' moment, Horner insists that Mateschitz fully appreciates the benefits of F1 and doesn't really want to leave the sport but merely be competitive again.
Following another difficult weekend which saw Daniil Kvyat retire just 15 laps into the race, smoke billowing from the rear of his car following an engine failure, and Daniel Ricciardo struggle to finish ninth, Horner defended Mateschitz' comments.
"If you look carefully at his comments, he is encouraging Renault to step up and do the job properly," said the Briton, according to {i]BBC Sport.
"There are a lot of talented people in Viry," he continued, referring to the French manufacturer's HQ in France. "They have a great heritage and they are better than what we are seeing. It's a question of how you respond to the situation you're in.
"It's a long season but hopefully at the end we will look back and say this is a low point but we recovered that situation," he added. "Ferrari in six months since Abu Dhabi have done a super job so it demonstrates what is possible in a relatively short period of time."
"There is no issue with Red Bull," said Renault's Cyril Abiteboul, "in the sense that they are a team that wants to be extremely successful. They are impatient to be back in a winning position, as we were two years ago. So we understand that, and their frustration. We are a supplier but we are also racers and also extremely frustrated. It is about supporting each other, not dragging each other down, but we want to deal with it together."