Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says that championship order was the determing factor that led to Sebastian Vettel getting the only new RB6 wing today.
The move has caused a huge amount of controversy as it has been widely perceived as reflecting support for Vettel, but Horner denies that charge.
“It’s very simple,” he told this blog. “If you have two components and you lose one, one into two doesn’t go. We faced a situation today where we’ve had one component, there’s been a request from both sides of the garage for it, and a decision has to be made. You have to apply a logic to it, and that logic was we look at the championship, we look at P3, and that was what the decision was based on.
“Also, performance is unquantified. Adrian was particularly keen to run that wing this weekend to learn about it, and from a team perspective, it is right to run that wing. So therefore it has to go on one driver’s car. And whichever car it went on, you’re going to have one aggrieved driver. So to do it fairly, or to look at it objectively and rationally, the most logical thing is to say, OK championship order.
“If Sebastian had crashed the car, and damaged the front wing, it would have been a completely different scenario, because it would have been his mistake.”
Perhaps next time the choice should be made by an octopus…
For the full interview see: http://formula-one.speedtv.com/article/cooper-great-day-for-red-bull-tarnished/
Adam Cooper F1 
“If Sebastian had crashed the car, and damaged the front wing, it would have been a completely different scenario, because it would have been his mistake.”
completely different scenario maybe, but we all know even then Vettel would still have gotten the new wing!
If the difference between Vettel and Weber was great I would understand….
But not smart….
its not about the difference, they choose Vettel over Webber!
You cant give Webber the old specs front wing, nd give Vettel the new one by taking it off from Webbers car!
this team is its own biggest enemy!!! Stupid decision was taken clearly favoring Vettel. Even if Horner’s reasoning is sound, for the sake of PR and team harmony Webber should have kept the new wing.
Their blatant favouritism and continued denials of this (meaning they consider F1 followers to be idiots) should be a crime. And to say that their will be ‘one aggreived driver’ is a little short sighted. Instead they have a plethora of aggreived F1 followers. Christian Horner should take a long hard look at himself. And if he thinks it’s ok to be so unfair, because he is just following instructions from the parent company, he should either quit his job, or grow a pair and stand up for what’s right.
Is RBR really this tone-deaf?
Baghdad Bob: “There are no American troops in Baghdad”.
Christian Horner: “RBR does not favor Vettel”.
I would love to be the fly on the wall when Mark and his Manager Flavio sit down with Christian Horner to talk about the wing.
Maybe Ron Dennis could buy Christian a drink and commiserate on having to manage two egos in a racing team.
Mark is showing some tough mental winning abilities by winning Silverstone after having the sensational accident. Sebastian appears to be mirroring Fernando and tossing his toys out of the pram when things don’t go right.
Amen to that. The pressure would have led many to bog down at the start or lose a front wing in the first corner, but Mark gave us another master class Sunday. Who could not have loved that?
Once the wings were handed out to each car, that should have been it. If there was only 1 wing which then fell off with the second yet to arrive at the track, I can see Horner’s reasoning being acceptable (even if I don’t completely agree with it).
Instead of looking at the whole situation, the team saw that there was one wing left and decided to give it out according to a system. Webber’s viewpoint (and he said as such) was that the wing was taken from him and given to the other side. This means he doesn’t see the system as fair and doesn’t expect a returned favour later.
I love Horner’s post-facto justification – he’s pretending there was only one wing in the first place.
Nice job, Webber. That’s the second race you ruined for the team by being pigheaded. When are you going to learn that you don’t run your teammate off the road?
Regarding the wing, it’s the team’s property just like the rest of the car and the drivers are the team’s employees. The team can do whatever it wants with the team’s property.
If Horner is making a mistake it is being too diplomatic. In his shoes I would sit Webber down and make it clear to him that he is not larger than the team. One more incident like that and he can look forward to partnering Sakon Yamamoto.
Tom, Webber took a better start and had the line to take turn 1 in 1st position (had priority). It was Vettel mistake to try to keep up. He should have let Webber go.
As the GP2 race showed it too, pole position in Silverstone looked like to be on the wrong side of the track…
What race were you watching Tom?? At what point did webber run vettel off the road? take a look at the first movement that vettel did towards webber off the line – that could have ended in tears. From before the entry to turn 1, webber was in front, and subsequent to that he had the racing line. At that point, Vettel should give way, or try and hold the outside line, which he did. Trying to take an outside line on a 170mph corner was always going to be difficult, and so it proved.
And if you also think that Webber was the cause of the istanbul crash, well, I despair.
(Disclosure: Australian, at Silverstone, waving an aussie flag)
Red-bull favors Vettel, Webber will always be no.2 nuff said.
octopus or no octopus, Vettel will get the better treatment.
Adam, strange question here. You tweeted this on Sunday evening (your twitter page says at 10:36pm, but not sure if that is right):
“Still a lot of people in the paddock watching football, including Alonso and Vettel. De la Rosa is on a plane right now. Bad planning!”
And Webber’s website says this:
‘After celebrating with the team at Silverstone, Mark drove 45 minutes home to Aylesbury to celebrate with his family and friends.
“This was the first European race of the season that mum and dad have attended,” says Mark. “It meant a lot to have them there and it was an emotional moment when I saw them standing below me on the podium, while Advance Australia Fair was playing out.”’
So thats apparently what both drivers were doing on Sunday night. Yet Horner says in an interview with The Daily Telegraph that both drivers were at a post-race party at his house, and they were all singing and getting along, etc. etc. – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/formulaone/redbull/7886259/Mark-Webber-row-rumbles-on-at-Red-Bull-as-Christian-Horner-denies-favouritism-claims.html
I can’t imagine that they would actually be lying about this, but it seems really odd to me. Are you sure you saw Vettel in the paddock on Sunday evening? Any chance that both drivers went to Horner’s thing after their own celebrations? Though you would have thought that would be mentioned on Webber’s site too.
I saw Vettel in the paddock quite late, but that was possibly before the match. A Brazilian colleague told me he saw him at the motorhome watching it which I thought was a bit odd given I knew about the party. So I guess he was wrong!