tok-tokkie wrote:Now Coulthard has given his considered opinion on the whole thing:
http://www.f1technical.net/news/15143
I read it & thought he was being reasonable and objective although his opinion is different to mine. Then the article ends with
Source Red Bull
Now I see it as more damage limitation from Red Bull & my opinion of Coulthard sinks to an even lower level. I used to think he acts like a Boy Scout but now I tend to see him as a Boy Scout. Girl Guide next?
As much as that's just a Red Bull PR piece, there is one little fact slipped in there that I hadn't previously realised - that before this weekend Red Bull admit they didn't have in place it's policy of supporting the current championship points leader. So the sequence of events is now that the wing issue came up and to resolve it they decided to make it Red Bull policy to support the championship points leader - it wasn't pre-existing policy, and runs counter to the team orders supposedly given in Turkey, but made up specifically because of this wing issue.
My issue with that is that surely this would mean that Horner would have known that this new policy should have been communicated to the drivers and that by not doing so he was going to cause the next big bust up. Webber was given no reason to believe that the taking of his wing was anything other than blatant favouritism towards Vettel and his team boss didn't think it worthwhile explaining the teams new policy to him?
To me it is more likely that the wing issue came up, Horner / Newey / Marko thought that Vettel was the faster (read preferred) driver so should have the additional opportunity, and as an excuse once the flair up became public this new policy was invented to suit the circumstances. They'll find further excuses should they need to back one driver over the other in future to make sure that it's Vettel that gets the support. I wouldn't care if they didn't to Webber and the rest of the world by saying that this wasn't the case.
White Blue, you still believe this is all just a PR spin story invented by Webber?