Chris Horner: “Me and Webber will talk behind closed doors about his reaction to team orders”

Red Bull team principal, Christian horner, he said he was surprised by the Australian Mark Webber, who said he ignored team orders towards the end of the British Grand Prix race. The team principal will want to meet Webber and discuss it behind closed doors.

Horner admitted he didn't expect a similar reaction from Webber – and made it clear he was unhappy the Australian risked losing the team valuable points.

Asked by Autosport if he felt surprised by Webber ignoring orders, Horner replied: “Yes. Ultimately the team is more important and no individual is more important than the team. I can understand Mark's frustration, but the same thing happened with the roles reversed and the same thing would have happened anyway."

“The same thing happened in Turkey with Sebastian, it makes no sense from a team point of view to risk both cars. It's clear that neither of them gives in."

“And then, we saw Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton at the last corner, very close to contact, it makes no sense for a team to continue to allow fighting in the final laps.”

“Mark obviously decided to ignore all this and still didn't get through anyway, but that's the team's position.”

Regarding a response to Webber's action, Horner said: "It's something he and I will address privately."

“He is free to fight for victory. He had qualified in pole position. He had the ability and the opportunity to win. It didn't go well for him today, but we will continue to give him every chance to do so,”

“From a team perspective, I had made it clear since the briefing with the drivers, in front of the engineers, that the biggest objective was to have a team result in front of all the staff who put in so much effort for both cars, for the constructors' and drivers' championships."

“Now both drivers have achieved that Sebastian has extended his lead in the championship, Mark has risen to second place and the team has increased the gap from the others in the constructors' championship”.

“As a team, we made the right decision. In other sports we have seen how substitutions are also made. But, from a team point of view, we didn't want to risk the 33 points. The riders are first and second respectively in the world championship and now we will not do anything to ruin this result."

Alessandra Leoni