Red Bull drivers "screwed up" but won't face team orders, says Horner

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Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has said no team orders will be introduced even though his drivers "screwed up" in Baku.

The Milton Keynes outfit was swift to go into damage limitation mode after Daniel Ricciardo rear-ended Max Verstappen under braking for Turn 1 taking both men out of the race on Sunday.

Neither driver blamed the other and the FIA even reprimanded both drivers after declaring they had contributed in some way to the incident.

The Australian and the Dutchman have been summoned to the factory to apologise to the entire team before the next race in Spain with Horner revealing warnings had been issued in the pre-race briefing.

“Unfortunately this was the culmination of two guys taking things into their own hands which shouldn’t have happened," the angry Red Bull boss declared.

“There were three incidents between the two of them during the course of the Grand Prix. They were told to calm it down a bit. What we’ve always said is give each other room on track and we’ll let you race.

“They’d just about done that throughout the Grand Prix until that unfortunate incident," he continued. “Things get discussed behind closed doors, but the drivers at the end of the day drive for a team and they both recognise that they have screwed up."

Given the contrition both Ricciardo and Verstappen have shown since the incident, Horner believes that the stern talking to and apologies are as far as any repercussions have to go.

“We will discuss it prior to Barcelona but we want to continue to allow the drivers to race,” he said.

 

Having his say though, Mercedes non-executive chairman and triple world champion Niki Lauda claims both would have been hit financially had he been in charge.

“I would bring them in the office together with Toto [Wolff] and tell them how much less they will get paid because of the damage they have done," he said. “Really. We thought about this once but we didn’t have to do it."

As for who was to blame, the Austrian added: “For me, it is 70 percent Verstappen and 30 percent Ricciardo.

“He was moving on him all the time, where can the poor guy go?”

 

         

 

 

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