Red Bull Hits Back At Mercedes Over Sandbagging Claims: "Nothing The FIA Can Do"
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has hit back at George Russell's claims that the Austrian team are 'sandbagging' in order to hide performance from the FIA.
During an appearance on the Chequered Flag podcast, Horner retaliated to the bold claims hinting that Mercedes would "know all too well about those kinds of advantages".
Red Bull has already been dominating the 2023 season just three races in. They achieved 1-2 finishes in both the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Max Verstappen won the dramatic Australian GP whilst Sergio Perez finished in fifth after starting from 20th in the pit lane.
Russell said after the race he thinks Red Bull were "almost embarrassed" to reveal the RB19's full potential “because the faster they seem globally the more the sport is going to try to hold them back somehow.”
Horner explained during the podcast:
“That’s very generous of him. He’d know too well from his team about those kinds of advantages.
“There’s always an element of management that goes on in any race. Because it was a one-stop race and a very early one-stop race, of course there was an element of tyre management going on.”
Verstappen also spoke about the accusations, claiming "there's nothing the FIA can do". He said:
"I think anyway, there’s nothing really they [the FIA and F1] can do. I mean, we just try to do the best we can with the development of the car, but it’s also about pace management.
"We didn’t really know, I think no-one really knew how long that hard tyre would last, so it’s about just bringing it home because we had a bit of pace I think over the others.
“There’s no need to try and gain half a second a lap and destroy your tyres to the end because you never know, a safety car can happen, red flags, like we had today. So yeah, it’s not necessary to risk all that."