Horner outlines Red Bull's defense line

Red Bull Racing decided to appeal following the exclusion of Daniel Ricciardo at the Australian Grand Prix where the local driver managed to take second place. The Milton Keynes team was penalized due to excessive fuel consumption compared to the authorized 100kg per hour. But Christian Horner rejects this point by ensuring that his team respected the famous Article 5.1.4 of the technical regulations.

“I hope it will become clear that the car was in compliance with the regulations during the appeal", commented the Team Principal of the Austrian structure. “These flow meters supplied by the FIA ​​had measurement problems throughout the weekend. We estimated that the flow meters installed did not match our calculations on the gasoline supplied to the engine by the injectors. It is a constant piece that does not offer variable data. We would not appeal if we did not believe this case was tenable. It's disappointing that these things happen and it's certainly not Daniel's fault. I don't think it was the team's fault and I'm sure we followed the rules. The investigation and the documents that will be submitted will prove this. »

Red Bull has indeed encountered problems with the flow meters supplied by the FIA ​​since the start of the weekend on the RB10, but refused to follow the Federation's instructions in making the necessary changes for the race. “We had a flow meter problem during practice on Friday and we replaced it with another one on Saturday which didn't work during qualifying.”, specifies Christian Horner. “We were asked to reinstall the Friday sensor and apply compensation. We did not find this compensation correct because we noticed a significant difference between what the flow meter gave and the consumption based on the injection of gasoline into the engine. This is where opinions differ. This is immature technology. It is impossible to have 100% confidence in this flow meter which has had problems in almost every session. They informed us and we informed them of our serious doubts regarding the flow meter. We are confident in our data. We would have suffered a significant loss of power even though we believed we were in total compliance with the regulations. Calibrating a flow meter can easily tell who is competitive and who is not based on its settings. »

Discover the analysis of the Australian Grand Prix carried out by our special correspondents in issue 1952 of AUTOhebdo, available from tomorrow evening in digital version on all platforms, and from Wednesday on newsstands.