Christian Horner defends Red Bull Canadian GP protest: “Absolutely no regrets”

Red Bull Formula 1 chief Christian Horner has defended the team’s choice to lodge two protests against Mercedes, saying he has “absolutely no regrets.”

The Milton Keynes outfit filed two protests against George Russell following the Canadian Grand Prix, related to driving erratically and leaving too much of a gap behind the safety car. After a five-hour wait, the FIA confirmed that the protests had been unsuccessful.

Following the Grand Prix in Montreal, the majority of the teams and drivers headed to New York City for the world premiere of F1, where Horner discussed the protests.

“No, absolutely not. I mean it’s a team’s right to do so,” the Red Bull chief explained to Sky Sports F1 on whether he regretted the protests. “We saw something that we didn’t think was quite right, and you have the ability to put it in front of the stewards. So that’s what we chose to do. Absolutely no regrets in that.”

As a result of the protests being unsuccessful, Russell retained his victory. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli completed the podium in second and third, respectively.

While speaking to the media after the race, Verstappen claimed that second was the best they could have achieved at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. 

“Yeah, I think so. It was quite a good race, even though I think the first two stints we were struggling quite a bit on the tyre, so we were doing quite an aggressive strategy,” the four-time champion explained.

“But luckily in that final stint, we managed to hang in there, and actually the pace was a bit better on a bit lower fuel load. So that was good. I think we drove an attacking slash defending race, attacking with the strategy, defending, of course, with the cars behind. 

“But it worked out for us. And I think that was, yeah, the maximum possible for us today.”