Christian Horner serves punishment for comments made at Qatar GP

Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner has fulfilled his obligation to be a part of the FIA’s stewards training programmes.

Horner volunteered to take part in the training of stewards after making negative comments on the stewards during the Qatar GP in 2021.

During qualifying for that race, a double yellow flag was waved at the end of Q3. This was because Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri suffered a puncture and was stuck near the start finish line.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, however, was deemed to have not shown the double flags enough respect. As a result, he was handed a five-place grid penalty and two superlicence penalty points.

After that happened, Horner had blamed a ‘rogue marshall’ for waving double yellow flags. And when his comments were reported widely, the FIA chose to take action.

Horner was summoned to the stewards for breaching the International Sporting Code. The ISC says “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” represent a breach of the rules.

Horner got a warning from the stewards and also offered to take part in the stewards’ training programmes. And it was an offer the stewards said yes to.

The training in question took place over this weekend. And it was attended virtually by stewards from around the world and from many different motor sport disciplines.

It was designed as a training course to help make them do their jobs in a better way.

Will Christian Horner lead Red Bull to more glory?

2021 was overall a good season for Red Bull. The team won their first driver’s championship in 8 years thanks to Verstappen winning the Abu Dhabi GP.

And they will be looking to build on that success, rather than have it be a one-off. But, according to Christian Horner himself, that might be easier said than done.

“I think it’s probable that the big teams will be at the front. Which order they’ll be in is difficult to predict,” Horner told RacingNews365.com.

“It’s the same group of people that were designing last year’s car that designed this year’s car, so it’s how you deal with a problem, how you interpret regulations, and the creativity of the group that differentiates them.

“It will be interesting to see what our competitors [do], but I think it’d be foolish to underestimate any of the teams with such a big regulation change.”