30/07/2021
NEWS STORY
Christian Horner insists that his team's criticism of Lewis Hamilton and the bid to have his penalty reviewed was "nothing personal".
The Briton was speaking as the Silverstone fallout continues, a situation not helped by comments allegedly made by Red Bull in their bid to have the Silverstone incident reviewed and the revelation that some of the language used was aimed at tarnishing Lewis Hamilton's reputation.
Justifying the bid to have the incident reviewed, Horner said: "Obviously there is the right to review that we utilised because we felt that, having looked at the data from the accident and the severity of the accident... there was data that wasn't available at the time of the stewards making their decision.
"We presented that data to the stewards," he continued. "They gave us a fair hearing where we were talked through that data, the positioning of the cars, the speed of the cars, the fact that Lewis would have had to have braked 23 metres earlier to have even made the corner, the fact that Max was on the same trajectory as identical to that of Charles Leclerc, that the result with Charles would have been identical had Lewis taken the same approach.
"The stewards felt that it wasn't new evidence under the confines of the regulations and so it wasn't opened into another hearing, so we accept that.
"This competition is all about marginal gains and leaving no stone unturned," he added. "And of course, when you have an accident of that velocity and impact, then of course, you're going to make a full investigation.
"But as far as we're concerned the chapter is now closed, the stewards have made their ruling and we now very much focus on this weekend and the remaining part of the championship."
However, it is the language used by the likes of Horner and Helmut Marko that has clearly rankled, especially the description of the seven-time world champion as an "amateur".
"It's absolutely not a personal attack on Lewis Hamilton," Horner insisted. "Lewis Hamilton is a seven-time world champion, and everything that he's achieved stands for itself. If it was any other competitor on the grid, we would have taken the same issue in the manner that we did.
"Obviously at the time emotions are running high," he admitted. "We've got a driver that's needing to be taken to hospital for precautionary checks after an accident which would have definitely knocked out your average human being. We've lost a car in its entirety under a budget cap environment for something that the stewards didn't deem to be Max's fault.
"So there's nothing personal about it. But even a seven-time world champion can sometimes make mistakes, or misjudgements. That's just a fact of life, but at no point has this been personal about Lewis."
Check out our Friday gallery from the Hungaroring, here.