Christian Horner insists Red Bull wants to win this year’s Formula 1 world championship “on the track” at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and not “in a stewards’ room”.
Off the back of Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton’s controversial battle in Saudi Arabia last weekend, there are fears their intense rivalry could boil over further at the title decider.
Hamilton’s victory in Jeddah, plus point for securing fastest lap, means he and Verstappen are tied on points in the drivers’ standings heading to Abu Dhabi.
Verstappen holds the accolade of having won more races than Hamilton this year, meaning if neither driver scored he would be crowned champion.
But while tensions between Red Bull and Mercedes have simmered all season long, Red Bull boss Horner stressed his team does care about winning the championship in the right manner.
Asked if he cared how Red Bull won the title, Horner said, as quoted by Motorsport.com: “Yes, of course we do.
“You want to win on the track. Not in a stewards’ room, not in a gravel trap. You want to win it.
“It’s been a tough fight all the way through the year. There’s been some fantastic racing between these two drivers, and I hope that it’s a fair and clean race in Abu Dhabi.”
Mercedes F1 chief Toto Wolff voiced his concern that the battle between Hamilton and Verstappen could end in a “messy situation”, with the pair having collided on three occasions this season.
Although Mercedes recent resurgence appears to have shifted momentum in its favour going into the season finale, Horner insists having a shot at a first drivers’ title in eight years is a scenario the team could only have dreamt of at the start of the year.
“There’s absolutely no issue with that, we’re a team that goes through it,” Horner said. “We’re going to Abu Dhabi equal on points, but leading by virtue of the number of wins.
“Who’d have thought at the beginning of the year, if you had given us this chance of one shot to win this world championship in Abu Dhabi at the last race after 21 races of an intense battle with Mercedes, I think we all as a team would have absolutely bitten your arm off for that.
“I think you guys probably would have as well, based on the dominance that we’ve seen the last seven years.”
Red Bull was involved the last title race to go down to the wire between rival teams in 2012, when Sebastian Vettel pipped Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso to the crown.
“It’s the first time since we were last there in 2012, and 2010 with Sebastian, that rival teams have gone into the final race fighting for the drivers’ world championship,” Horner said.
“There’ll be no problem in raising morale going into this final weekend. It’s been a crazy race here, we’ve actually come out of it with a second place, and we managed to get ourselves into a lead, and lead a large percentage of the race once again.
“But Lady luck’s shining on Lewis at the moment. Ocon drove over his front wing at the start, he drove into the back of Max. You know, he’s ridden his luck.”
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