Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has sensationally revealed that a rival team tried to contact the Austrians’ “sponsors and partners” following the ‘cashgate’ revelation, where the Milton Keynes-based team were found guilty of breaching the 2021 budget cap.
The FIA judged the Austrians to have made a ‘minor’ breach of the 2021 cap, with the side having been fined $7 million and awarded a 10-percent reduction in aerodynamic research.
Several teams hit out at Red Bull for having breached the cap, with McLaren CEO Zak Brown having publicly labelled it as “cheating”.
As of yet, Red Bull are yet to really feel the full force of their punishment, given that the RB19 was largely designed and developed before the penalty was awarded.
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The public humiliation, though, was something that Red Bull felt waves of, with Horner having admitted that the breach “tainted us”.
He went on to explain how he feels like “the Kardashians on wheels”, with the Briton only ever being “six inches from a kick up the arse”.
“It tainted us,” Horner told iNews.
“These things get used by your rivals. We had one of them contacting our sponsors and partners making suggestions that we would be bringing their brands into disrepute. That was just underhand.
“My wife has always said to me a pat on the back is only six inches from a kick up the arse. This is like the Kardashians on wheels. As long as you are comfortable with the decisions you are taking. That’s how I live my life.”
Red Bull are certainly a side that deal with a huge amount of negativity in the UK specifically, despite being based on Milton Keynes.
Horner admits that his side are often “seen as the bad guys”, with the Red Bull boss believing a British driver would change that perception.
“If we had a British driver like a certain team in Brackley,” Horner said. “We are too easily seen as the bad guys.”
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Whilst they haven’t had a British driver since David Coulthard in 2008, the Austrians do have double World Champion Max Verstappen, who is arguably the strongest driver currently on the grid.
“There isn’t another Max. If you look back at 2021 at the pressure he had at certain points he drove some incredible races,” added the Red Bull boss.
“In Zandvoort, his home nation had turned it into a flipping nightclub for the weekend.”