Horner sees cautious FIA through title fight: 'There's a lot at stake now'

The FIA has been taking longer to make decisions on incidents or complaints lately, especially when it comes to Mercedes and Red Bull Racing. Christian Horner understands that the race committee is taking their time and being cautious as the end of the title race approaches.

Mercedes wanted the FIA to look again at the decision on the incident between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton in turn four during the Brazilian Grand Prix. In the end the FIA decided not to revisit that case, but that decision took 24 hours. It takes a long time for decisions to be made, but the Red Bull Racing team boss understands that it takes a little longer.

"It is an unusual amount of time but I think, particularly with what’s at stake, there’s huge scrutiny going into each of these decisions. So I think they are very conscious that they want to make the right decision that doesn’t leave themselves open to scrutiny. So therefore they are taking the time to come to these decisions," the Briton told Racer.

Still frustrated by marshal incident

Horner was also recently called to the grid for calling a marshal 'rogue' after he waved yellow flags in qualifying. He eventually got away with a warning and an apology, but Verstappen did get a grid penalty for ignoring yellow flags. These things are frustrating, especially now that they're busy with the title race.

" think there’s always room for improvement, isn’t there? I think we’ve seen other teams voicing their displeasure at the FIA as recently as Brazil. So yeah, there’s always going to be frustration obviously when there’s tight competition and marginal calls can have massive impacts, like we saw with the grid penalty."