Horner summoned to meet FIA stewards over alleged International Sporting Code breach

2021 Qatar Grand Prix

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Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has been summoned to speak to the stewards of the 2021 Qatar Grand Prix over an alleged breach of the International Sporting Code.

He is under investigation for an alleged breach of two articles of the ISC.

The first is article 12.2.1 (f) which forbids “any words, deeds or writings that have caused moral injury or loss to the FIA, its bodies, its members or its executive officers, and more generally on the interest of motor sport and on the values defended by the FIA.”

The second is article 12.2.1 (k) which prevents “any Misconduct towards licence-holders, officials, officers or member of the staff of the FIA, members of the staff of the Organiser or promoter, members of the staff of the competitors, doping control officials or any other person involved in a doping control carried out in accordance with Appendix A.”

The FIA has not stated how Horner is suspected to have infringed the rules. However he was sharply critical of the decision to hand a five-place grid penalty to his driver Max Verstappen ahead of today’s race.

Horner criticised the decision to penalise Verstappen for failing to slow for double waved yellow flags which were shown by a marshal when other yellow flag signals had been withdrawn.

“I think the race director should have control of the circuit,” said Horner. “He’s the referee at the end of the day and otherwise anybody, you get a marshal that decides to stick a yellow flag out, how does that work?”

“There needs to be some grown-ups making grown-up decisions,” Horner added.

“I think it’s just a rogue marshal that’s stuck a flag out and he’s not been instructed to by the FIA. They’ve got to have control of their marshals, it’s as simple as that because that’s a crucial blow in this world championship for us.”

Horner is due to meet the stewards a 7:15pm local time in Qatar.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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70 comments on “Horner summoned to meet FIA stewards over alleged International Sporting Code breach”

  1. Could not stop digging.

    1. i think the fault lies with Hamilton for going too fast. They were supposed to penalize Ham, and not Max, but run out of options.

  2. I do think the FIA need to start penalising dissent in the same way as some other sports. The way some people (not just Red Bull) have spoken about race officials in the past is outrageous. But it is strange they have chosen now to take action – you’d have thought giving everyone a stern talking-to at the start of the season to set expectations, then penalising future offenders, would have been the way to go.

    1. You mean like Toto at Interlagos?

      1. Might well be @hahostolze that these stewards thought Horner’s words about the rogue marshal etc were too much, and after they’d all been getting pretty tired of the sniping from those two over the last few races often including FIA and stewards, decided to give everyone a reminder to keep mind their words a bit this way? That’s what I’d go with.

        1. And I’d agree entirely @bosyber. And I’m so fed up with the two grown children and their endless snipes. Horner’s inferiority complex is also draining.
          But you can’t pretend that he’s the first to make personal comments or gestures regarding FIA or steward decisions or actions. It’s all so random and subjective. It’s pure Netflix.

    2. I mean, toto admitted the interlagos gesture was against Masi, but that Horner guy is really a bad guy

      1. citation needed?

        1. “That was just friendly hello at the race director,” said Wolff of his celebration.”
          Do you want the skysport link?

          1. Using the F word at a race director is perfectly acceptable, no?
            Seb’s message to Charlie Whiting in Mexico and such. Yet calling out a marshal for an erroneously waved flag resulting in a penalty for a driver in the heat of the fight for the title is clearly a bridge too far.

            All for the tension in the championship of course. Which driver will the FIA choose to be champion?

  3. That was overdue.

    1. not according to max and horner no.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQD48Vcvp50

      they still think they have not got enough gifts so far. they just want mercedes to be banned from the season i guess.

  4. Made my day – I wonder if he’ll ask for a refund while he’s there?

  5. Oh well they’re just doing it to get everyone off the scent. We all know FIA are just in it to block Hamilton amirite?

    1. Do us all a favour and give it a rest would you

      1. @john-h have you seen the thread on the race result page? If you had, you wouldn’t be making this comment. In fact, you’d be apologising.

    2. @hahostolze

      Once you accept that everyone and everything is and has been against Lewis since he was 5 years old, everything will be better.

  6. This is why I don’t support Red Bull and never will. Max needs to get out of there.

    1. …and go where? It’s not like he has a lot of options:
      – either wait for Lewis to retire and get that seat next to Russel (doubtful)
      – hope Ferrari builds a truly great car in the next few years and get a seat next to Leclerc (10x more doubtful).

    2. Unless Christian actually gets out…

  7. Huh? There’s a rule for not hurting FIA feeling?

    1. Yes, like almost any sport or business.

      1. i dont know why but i laughed real hard at this

  8. Would be a terrible shame if he got fined – I do wonder at what point Red Bull might stop blaming everyone else and look internally for their issues and lack of performance.

    Genuine question as I don’t know (but doubt it). If found guilty, could there be a punishment against the team or it’s drivers since this ‘gentleman’ is the team principal?

    1. Realistically, they only thing they can do would be to fine the team/Horner himself.

    2. @sham Well Verstappen’s just refused to accept he was at fault for not seeing double waved yellows, so it seems to run deep in the team.

  9. Considering the amount of rubbish that spews out of Toto for the whole year I’m surprised we’re going after Horner first.

    Really both of them need to learn the value of silence.

    1. I agree, but Toto is clever enough to stop short of accusing the officials directly of doing wrong.

    2. Really both of them need to learn the value of silence.

      You too mate. And many others here.

    3. Horner on this occasion has gone a bit further with a direct criticism of a marshal and Masi.

  10. Well about time somebody takes action against him.
    Nothing intelligent to say, only …(that word beginning with H that the they don’t want to read in here).

  11. It’s about time!

  12. could not care less for this guy. Just remember how unpolite and classless he was with Renault a few years back.

    Now he ignores a dangerous situation and accuses a marshall of being bad at his job by doing the right thing just because his precious dind’t see it.

    1. I feel for Honda because Redbull will cause them a lot of embarassment.

  13. About time.!!
    I’m fed up with Horner & Toto acting like children…..not team principles.
    Could you imagine Brawn or FW acting like this.

    Horner been singled out because he’s attacked the integrity of the Marshal’s who do a thankless task and some have even been killed doing they’re job. Disgusting from Horner.

    1. The worst that could happen, is that more key staff could leave to other team. Imagine if Adrian Newey started to feel too embarrassed working with CH and left to another team… that would be really bad for RBR. There are many teams principals (past and present) who should sometimes not talk to the media; but somehow CH can come up with such bs that he is more embarrassing than any other. I think it doesn’t do Red Bull any good in terms of image, doesn’t provide Max with a good role model and makes F1 a laughing stock. I

      it makes us, armchair experts, have something to talk about in between races though!

  14. Well he did make a valid point. After all the inconsistency now it seems they don’t even control their own staff. Still ok to hand a penalty if you must. From the onboard you could see two yellow flags and Max doesnt need to concern himself about the organisation around it. Horner should be allowed to do so.

    1. No he did not. Marshalls are SUPPOSED to react to situations in front of them, not wait for approval, as they will often be the first to see issues. And that is also why flags are at a higher priority than panels and car lights.

    2. No he didn’t have a point.

      On track marshals flags always have to be obeyed even if they’re waved in error. The marshals can know what’s there on the trace before the race director does. A driver’s job isn’t to try and guess if the flags are correct or not, it’s just to obey the flags, which Verstappen (and Bottas) didn’t. Alonso, Sainz and Vettel all slowed, why didn’t Verstappen?

    3. This is what I said in the previous thread.

      The elephant in the room isnt being addressed, why did the race director set the track to green? Its a fair question.

      What are the drivers supposed to follow? Race Director or the Marshalls? I dont know, I hope this is clear.

      Horner can get banned for life for all I care, cant be bothered, what I’d like to know is, what takes precedence, the LED indicator boards (which presumably are enabled from Race Control) or the Marshals waving flags? Or both?

      1. Flags take precedence. They are on the scene, and ultimately are there to react to what is going on in front of them. Race control does things like trigger safety cars, red, blue and black/white flags etc.

        1. Is that documented anywhere? I can see that it’s the sensible approach, but what do the FIA standards say?

          Suffice to say that if the course is green and you’ve got a marshall, albeit doing the right thing, waving double and the single yellows., just doesnt sit well, it’s actually more dangerous.

  15. Convict him.

  16. So marshals are now fair game to some?

  17. Barry Bens (@barryfromdownunder)
    21st November 2021, 16:34

    So Wolff saying the FIA are racists is okay, but Horner (rightfully) saying they are incompetent isn’t? What a joke…

  18. Jonathan Edwards
    21st November 2021, 16:35

    It would help those slamming Horner if the author would give all the context and all the quotes. Horner contrasted it with the leniency shown to Sainz, who blasted past Gasly with his DRS open, full throttle. He then slowed when he was already well past Sainz, and so was judged to have sufficiently met the criteria of slowing for the flag. Yes, that makes a lot of sense.

    Furthermore, the official marshalling system which signals the teams and cars, had lifted the yellow flag 34 seconds prior to Max entering this section of track. Horner is arguing that if the race director decided that Gasly did not pose a safety hazard, then why not alert the marshals?

  19. I think Horners right. Should have said it in an other way, but why are VB and MV punished for a solo action of a marshall which they couldn’t have seen. All yellow flags were withdrawn! just ridiculous. Need to do something about that for sure.

    1. Is that you Christian?

  20. Very nawty KarenH! Send him to bed without any supper!

  21. The Brits have a perfect word for Horner; I believe it’s ‘tosser’.

    1. For Horner, I prefer one I heard today…

      Whinger spice.
      Or the more common Karen Horner.

      But yours works, as do many others.

    2. In reverse, it’s Rosset!

  22. LOL. Steiner did something similar following the 2019 Russian GP.

  23. 12 month pitlane ban please ;-)

  24. It can’t be over what he said about the marshal. Maybe something else has happened since then that has not gone public yet.
    Otherwise it is a farce.

    1. You obviously don’t know much about F1 or racing. Of course its about the Marshal, you cannot go around slagging them off. He may have waved double yellow because of something he saw, he’s the man on the spot trying to protect others risking their lives.
      I can’t believe how many on here don’t seem to understand the basic saftey of Motorsport.

      1. I don’t have a problem with what the marshal did. A car was broken down in front of him so I guess he did what he thought was best.
        But I find it stupid that Horner was called about what he said.

        1. Funny that Bottas also got a penalty. And he said he didnt see it. Plain and simple.

          Verstappen likely didnt see it either but horner is there bending over backwards to place the blame on someone else.

          1. As I’ve written elsewhere, this is becoming a bit worrying actually. Last year Hamilton and Giovinazzi did not see the red light and went into the pits. Now in a single incident 3 drivers did not see the double yellows.

            They rely too much on the info they get from their team. I do not understand why they fail to see the flags so often, but this is becoming a safety concern.

  25. CH could have been the worst team principal ever, except he could never compete with Toto Wolff and Ron Dennis

  26. An Official Warning is issued to Mr Horner.

    The Stewards heard from the Team Principal (Christian Horner). He explained that
    his reaction was one that was made under the pressure of competition following the
    penalty imposed on the driver of Car 33.
    The Stewards explained that the marshal concerned was doing his job in precisely the
    manner prescribed in the International Sporting Code.
    Mr Horner offered to apologise to the marshal concerned and to explain to the media
    that he meant no offense.
    He also offered to participate in the 2022 FIA International Stewards Programme in
    early February.
    The Stewards unreservedly accept Mr Horner’s offer.
    Competitors are reminded that they have the right to appeal certain decisions of the
    Stewards, in accordance with Article 15 of the FIA International Sporting Code and
    Article 10.1.1 of the FIA Judicial and Disciplinary Rules, within the applicable time
    limits.

    1. @andyformsandy What, not even a fine?

      I was expecting a fine to help boost the FIA christmas party fund. That party is going to be epic. How do I get an invite?

  27. There needs to be some grown-ups making grown-up decisions,” Horner added.

    And then immediately resigned to let a grown-up take over his job.
    (news from a parallel universe, obviously)

  28. So a rogue official is now allowed to decide the championship by just starting to wave with flags. And nobody is allowed to say anything.

    Horner just telling the truth, but apparently they get all jack Nicholson here; they just can’t handle the truth.

    There are only a few good men at the FIA nowadays.

    1. you just forgot there was a car parked at the straight.
      It was a reason to lift by itself. Something you and Mr. Spicegirl there are failing to understand.

  29. Christian Horner is a national treasure. Rbr get away with what they did in Sao Paolo and then complain here for the job being done properly.

    Stress is getting to them.

  30. I wonder if the FIA are going to summon themselves for bringing the sport into disrepute by suggesting that rules would be applied differently by different stewards…

  31. “Christian Horner, you are hereby charged with being… how do we say this politely? Er…. a C-word.”

    Guilty as charged!

Comments are closed.