Red Bull boss Christian Horner accuses F1 rivals of ‘looking up skirts’

Review of Monaco Grand Prix qualifying

Christian Horner joked that it was rude to ‘look up people’s skirts’ after several of Red Bull’s rivals got a good view of their floor design following Sergio Perez’s crash in qualifying at the Monaco Grand Prix. The underside of the RB19 was clear for all to see when Perez’s car was hoisted up by a crane after he collided with the wall on Saturday, while Lewis Hamilton’s stricken Mercedes was also lifted high into the air during FP3 after his own brush with the barriers.

Teams are usually sensitive about revealing too much of their cars to their Constructors’ Championship rivals, especially regarding the secrets of their ground-effect floor designs. Horner was not too worried about the possibility of other teams copying Red Bull’s successful concept, though, despite the potential for the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari to take inspiration from what they saw on Saturday.

“It’s very rude to look up people’s skirts,” joked Horner. “It’s been a bit of a show and tell for all the teams this weekend. Everybody’s been up in the air at some point, so it’s the same for everyone.”

Plenty of photographers lined up to capture the underside of Perez’s damaged Red Bull after his unfortunate crash in Q1, although it has been claimed that Hamilton made sure to snap his own pictures of the Austrian team’s floor design with the aim of taking a closer look. Rosanna Tennant, host of the Chequered Flag podcast, has alleged that Hamilton admitted to her that he was quick to take a couple of photos to examine ahead of this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix.

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She said: “Lewis Hamilton was joking with me that he’s saved the photos of the floor of the Red Bull on his phone, and he’ll be looking at them very closely, zooming in.”

It remains to be seen whether Mercedes will decide to copy Red Bull’s design in the not-too-distant future, with the Silver Arrows still working to reduce the gap between themselves and their long-time rivals at the top of the F1 pecking order. They introduced a number of performance upgrades in Monaco but were careful not to draw too many conclusions from the race due to the unique nature of the iconic Monte-Carlo street circuit.

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Mercedes were left aggrieved when Hamilton’s car was hoisted up in the air following his crash in FP3 on Saturday morning, with Toto Wolff speaking out on the matter after the session, although trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin insisted that Red Bull would be the team most upset with their floor design being exposed to the world.

“I suspect they’re probably more annoyed at their car being left in the sky than we would be about ours,” he said. “To be honest, with these regulations, the most important bit is the bit you don’t normally get to see, so the teams will be all over those kinds of photographs. Monaco is a good opportunity to get that kind of shot.”

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