F1 needs new approach to team orders – Horner

F1 should take a new approach to team orders, Christian Horner has told a German news magazine.

Just last month, Red Bull’s team boss backed the FIA’s current ban by insisting that “team orders are wrong”.

The Briton has now told Focus: “It is a regime that should definitely be discussed again and clarified.”

After 2002, the FIA banned team orders due to the furore sparked by Rubens Barrichello reluctantly moving aside to allow his Ferrari teammate Michael Schumacher to win the Austrian grand prix.

In more recent weeks, Red Bull drivers Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel collided from the lead in Turkey, before the team was embroiled in a controversy surrounding the transfer of a new wing from Webber’s car to Vettel’s.

Horner insists that Webber and Vettel are treated equally, but admitted that 23-year-old Vettel is obviously a longer-term prospect.

“Mark only has two, or at the most three years still in him, but in Sebastian there are ten, eleven, twelve.

“So when you talk about the future, then it is obviously Sebastian who – hopefully – will spend many years with the team,” he said.

© RIF | GMM