Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner expressed “huge frustration” at the collision between Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel that ruined both drivers’ races and cost the team 28 points – and said both drivers had to accept a share of responsibility.
Polesitter Webber led the majority of the race, while a shrewd early tyre change for Vettel promoted him to second place ahead of McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, putting the team on course for its third one-two finish of the season.
But on lap 40, when Vettel got a run on Webber on the back straight, the pair clashed as they both refused to yield track position, ending Vettel’s race on the spot and consigning Webber to third place.
Horner made no attempt to disguise his anger afterwards, saying his two drivers had broken the cardinal rule that team-mates must not take each other off – and contrasting their antics with the tense but clean duel between McLaren duo Hamilton and Jenson Button.
“It’s really disappointing for the team to get into that position,” he said.
“The one request I have for the drivers is that they must give each other room, give each other respect.
“As we saw with Lewis and Jenson today, they fought pretty hard but they gave each other just enough room.”
Horner said the accident was particularly galling because Red Bull had outwitted McLaren on pit strategy and was on course to extend its championship lead.
“It was a massively close race between ourselves and McLaren today, and we’d managed to get ourselves ahead of them through a better pit stop and a better strategy with Sebastian,” he said.
“We gave 28 points to McLaren on a plate today, which is disappointing for all the guys [Red Bull team members] who’ve put in so much hard work.
“So it’s very frustrating.”
Many observers laid the blame squarely at Vettel’s door for prematurely moving across on Webber when he had not completed the pass.
But Horner did not see the incident that way, pointing out that Vettel was faster than Webber at that stage of the race and that the Australian had given him very little racing room by squeezing him to the far inside of the straight.
However he also reckoned Vettel had misjudged his manoeuvre by drifting across the track before he had pulled clear of Webber’s car.
“Sebastian had a clear run and he was quicker at that point of the race,” he noted.
“Mark kept him on the dirty line and Sebastian came over arguably a bit too early.”
He added: “You could see on the previous lap that Mark was looking like he was starting to struggle on that set of prime tyres, and Sebastian was very, very close to him.
“He had a little bit of a look the previous lap and then got a very good run out of turn nine, got into his slipstream, and was actually three-quarters of the way past when they made contact.
“I’m annoyed that they both got themselves into that situation. They are both at fault.
“They didn’t give each other enough room – it’s as simple as that.”
When it was put to Horner that it was surprising Vettel had managed to get alongside Webber when Hamilton had been unable to do so throughout the first stint – despite the McLaren’s clear straightline speed advantage – he initially insisted the German had simply got a particularly strong exit from turn nine.
“You could see that Sebastian had a pace advantage,” he said.
“I think Mark wasn’t quite as happy on that set of prime tyres.
“Both guys were in the same engine mode, but one got a tow and the benefit of the tow was enough to put him alongside.”
However, Webber indicated that wasn’t the whole story when in the post-race press conference he advised journalists to “dig more” to understand why he had suddenly fallen into Vettel’s clutches.
After a team debrief Horner later revealed that Webber had turned his engine down into a fuel-saving mode on the lap in question, which was what enabled Vettel to pick up his slipstream so early on the straight.
It seems Vettel had been able to save an extra kilogramme of fuel as a result of having spent the race in the slipstream of other cars, and therefore was able to run one extra lap flat-out – which meant lap 40 gave him a potentially make-or-break opportunity to pass his team-mate.
But Horner pointed out that Red Bull did not have the option of reining Vettel in because he was under pressure from the close-following McLarens, with less than three seconds covering the leading quartet.
“The problem was that you’ve got two McLarens right behind you, so you’re not in a position where you can start backing off at that stage of the race, so both drivers were going flat-out,” he explained.
And he was adamant that, whatever the circumstances, there was no excuse for two team-mates to crash into each other.
“It’s inevitable when you’ve got two guys fighting at the front that occasionally you are going to have incidents – but what you don’t expect is to see it within your own team,” he said.
source[www.itv-f1.com]

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Webber instinctively defended and left an F1 car-sized gap at the side of the road on the dirty, unused part of the track. Vettel chose to take it and moved alongside and then slightly ahead.

At this point the German either realised he would never stop in time, or he wanted to muscle and intimidate Webber across the road to ensure a better line into the hairpin.

It was a deliberate move of the wheel from Vettel, not a slide under braking.
Red Bull's Christian Horner

Horner implies Webber was to blame for crash

Unsurprisingly, Webber never moved, contact was made, Vettel was out of the race and Webber's car was damaged.

Such was the dominance of the four cars, he was able to pit for repairs and still have seven seconds in hand over Michael Schumacher's fourth-placed Mercedes, a gap he quickly stretched to more than 20 seconds.

McLaren were partly gifted a one-two but that's a little unfair because their pace was such that they pressured Red Bull into this scenario.

I spoke with Christian Horner and Helmut Marko of Red Bull immediately after the race.

They asked how I called it on TV and I told them I said it was 100% Vettel's fault for swerving into Webber.

They clearly disagreed and said that Webber should never have been squeezing his team-mate onto the dirty part of the race track when as a team they needed to be defending against the ever-present McLarens.
Red Bull's Mark Webber

Webber explains Vettel incident

There's some substance to that argument but the bottom line is that Vettel turning right into the side of Webber's car was not the right answer. He so nearly wiped him out for a second time in the run-off area at the hairpin, too.

The team can't expect Webber to score three consecutive dominant pole positions and wipe the floor with all comers, including his team-mate, in the previous two races in Spain and Monaco and then suddenly turn all passive the first time Vettel makes a move on him.

If Webber had lifted or moved over he may as well have just handed the world championship trophy to his team-mate and headed back to Australia.

He had to stand his ground. And, remember, these decisions are taken in a split second at 200mph, not in the rational aftermath with the benefit of data and video.

David Coulthard never fully recovered psychologically from being forced by McLaren to move over for Mika Hakkinen in Jerez 1997 and Melbourne 1998 - and nor did his reputation.

The problem Red Bull have is that it seems clear they favour their protégé Vettel to take the title over Webber, who is 11 years older.

They can't claim to treat both drivers equally and then apparently favour one because the whole situation will implode between the two sides of the garage....