When it’s off-track issues that have been making the headlines at the start of a new season, what does this say about the situation F1 is in?
ALEX KALINAUCKAS
It’s a really pivotal moment for the sport, in terms of what we project to the world. How it’s handled. And it’s not been handled very well to this point.”
Lewis Hamilton there, not for the first time on an important and sensitive subject, getting it spot on. The seven-time world champion was speaking last week ahead of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Specifically, he’d been asked about the off-track controversies currently engulfing the championship. The Christian Horner/Red Bull situation has been running longest, but the question posed to Hamilton also concerned the investigations currently facing FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem. In the championship’s hive brain, let alone the consciousness of the millions of fans watching on, neither is going to go away fast. And nor should they.
The latter situation, allegedly, is an amazing example of an organisation shooting itself in the foot. To have the FIA president under investigation concerning the ultimately trivial matter of a pitstop penalty (plus whatever went on before the Las Vegas race return) just gives oxygen to a very real fear of race fixing, a la what certain sections of the F1 fanbase feel about the Abu Dhabi 2021 officiating saga.
In the former, the Horner saga, the story has taken yet more twists. But the message from the man at its centre was: let’s talk about something else. “As far as I’m concerned, as far as Red Bull is concerned, we move on and we look to the future,” Horner said in the Jeddah team principals’ press conference. “The intrusion on my family is now enough.”
That was four days on from Horner walking Geri Horner down the Bahrain paddock in such a display that the Daily Mailwas rapidly on the phone to a body language expert. The pair were back in front of the cameras after Max Verstappen had snapped up a second victory in a week in the Middle East.
The overarching desire of progressing from this murky point can, of course, happen. But it’s vital that doesn’t take place until the full facts of the matter have been established and addressed. Only then can progress come as the following step.
That hasn’t happened yet because most of the case’s details remain private. And, while sources have suggested that the Red Bull squad would like to release more specifics, perhaps even the full report that was compi
