Needless to say, these are the same team principals who outspokenly criticized Ferrari for their team tactics at Hockenheim, including Red Bull and Hispania Racing 1 Team. While the latter may very well leave the series before the end of 2010, we'll focus on the Austrian team's take at the matter.
“I think the rule was brought in for a reason – to avoid the situation that happened in 2002 (Austria),” said Horner, hinting that a situation like the one in Austria, where Rubens Barrichello let Michael Schumacher pass him on the last hundreds of meters of the race, should not occur in the future, even if reckoning F1 is a team sport.
“F1 is a team sport, but the rules are as they are. The issue in Hockenheim was very much an issue between the FIA and Ferrari. I think moving forward, it is perhaps an area that needs to be looked at. But I think for me, F1 it has been quite healthy in the last couple of years where drivers have raced each other and I think that that should be encouraged rather than negated,” added Horner.
His comments come only a few hours after his very race driver Mark Webber told the media, regarding Ferrari's saga, that “the people who think it's the first time it's happened (since 2002 Austrian GP) are absolutely dreaming.”
Horner insisted though that this is a new generation as compared to the ones of John Surtees, Niki Lauda and Michael Schumacher (early 2000s) and, as long as Red Bull has chosen to let its drivers race freely, so should everybody else in the paddock.
“Rightly or wrongly, we've allowed our guys to race and that is something they have done throughout this year. In Turkey we paid the ultimate price for that, where one retired and the other achieved a lesser result than he should have done. If the rules were different then perhaps we would have addressed that race differently,” added Horner.
From the teams who are currently for the scrap of the teams ban, one can name Ferrari, Mercedes GP and BMW Sauber Ferrari.
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