Red Bull has accused McLaren of using Jenson Button as a “sacrificial lamb” in Sunday’s Japanese grand prix.<\/p>\n
It could be seen as simply the latest tit-for-tat exchange of hostilities between the British based teams, but Christian Horner’s theory would explain Button’s very long first stint at Suzuka on the hard tyre.<\/p>\n
The Red Bull team boss hypothesised that McLaren’s plan might have been to have Button out of sequence ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton’s rivals – including Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber – to slow them down.<\/p>\n
“But then it looked like Hamilton developed a problem and they aborted that strategy for Jenson.\u00a0 It looked a little bit like he was a sacrificial lamb.\u00a0 I don’t know.<\/p>\n
“It just seemed strange,” Horner is quoted by the Daily Telegraph.<\/p>\n
McLaren’s Martin Whitmarsh acknowledged the logic of Horner’s theory but said the truth is that Button’s race strategy had simply not worked.<\/p>\n
“Yes there was,” said the Briton when asked if the possibility existed of using Button as a ‘blocker’ for Hamilton with the unusual strategy.<\/p>\n
“If we had left him out there longer … it is not how we play our game,” insisted Whitmarsh.\u00a0 “Maybe others would but that is not how we go motor racing.”<\/p>\n
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