Following his team's crushing victory at Spa, Red Bull boss, Christian Horner offers a cheeky word of thanks to arch-rival Toto Wolff.

The Belgian Grand Prix finally saw the introduction of the technical directive aimed at eliminating, or at least severely reducing, the bouncing witnessed for much of the season.

First announced after the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, when fans were shocked to see Lewis Hamilton seemingly in great pain as he climbed from his car, it was widely thought that the technical directive would compromise the likes of Red Bull, for other than the bouncing (or vertical oscillations) attention was also to be paid to the planks and skids underneath the cars in terms of wear.

From the outset, Red Bull, Ferrari and others questioned the move, while Mercedes - among the worst hit by the porpoising phenomenon - were all in favour, no doubt hoping that whilst it would aid their cause it might also handicap its rivals.

However, Max Verstappen's dominant form throughout the Spa weekend suggests that far from being reined in, Red Bull is actually in danger of pulling further ahead, and Christian Horner was keen to show his appreciation.

"On the face of it I'd probably have to thank Toto for the TD!" he laughed at race end.

"In all seriousness, I think this circuit has played to our strengths," he added. "We have a very efficient car, we've found a very good set-up and Max has just been in phenomenal form the very first lap in first practice.

"Obviously, strategically we chose to take the penalty here and 14th became 13th technically as the starting point with everybody else. Of course, Max still had to navigate his way through the pack and he did that very efficiently over the first couple of laps, so he hit the front far quicker than we could have ever expected and the soft tyre seemed to work for him as well in that stint.

"Thereafter the pace we had with Max and Checo was enough that he got past Carlos to bring home one of the most dominant performances that we've had as a team since either 2010 or 2013."

Asked about the effect of the technical directive, Horner was adamant that the team hadn't had to change its approach to set-up.

"A lot was made and a lot of expectation was put on that TD," he said, "so perhaps it's hurt others more than it's hurt ourselves. We haven't really changed the way we operate the car.

"Obviously, grounding here has always been an issue because of Eau Rouge," he added, "but that's not unique to us, that's the same for every team."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Spa here.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by Spindoctor, 30/08/2022 16:16

"@yakker
As I recall, Wolff was a prime mover (along with drivers from several Teams) for the anti-bounce TD. As for flexi-floor, Wolff claimed to be surprised that other teams had allegedly implemented flexi-floors and had no part in initially lobbying for it. From what was revealed in public FIA thought that one up all on their own.

As I've pointed-out a few times before, Wolff's support for anti-bounce TD was most disadvantageous to Teams, like Mercedes with bouncy cars. RBR OTOH had few instances of the dreaded marine mammalian interference in their car.

Your observation:
"..If the Mercedes car was that bad it was injuring their drivers, all they had to do was raise the ride height, simples..."
Well yes, but how is this relevant to Wolff allegedly trying to disadvantage Team Horner whose car has worked almost flawlessly in this regard from day 1 & would therefore be unaffected by the TD?"

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2. Posted by kenji, 30/08/2022 13:52

"@ Yakker...exactly right. I made a similar deduction some time back. That plus round the grid comments to support that theory. The 'biter' just got 'bitten'."

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3. Posted by yakker, 30/08/2022 13:23

"Its not self evident to me Spindoctor. why would Wolff support something that would give Red Bull (and others) a bigger advantage? If the Mercedes car was that bad it was injuring their drivers, all they had to do was raise the ride height, simples. However if they thought it was due to Red Bull and Ferrari having a flexible plank, then I understand the thinking. But nowhere was proof it was Red Bull doing this, and this showed in Spa.
"

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4. Posted by Spindoctor, 30/08/2022 10:30

"Just noticed that I missed-off the end of my final sentence\paragraph (poor proofing). As it is it doesn't make sense....

It should read:
Horner's silly attempts to suggest that Mercedes' support for the anti-bounce Directive was in order to improve Mercedes' performance, continues to grate. It was always obvious from 1st principles that the opposite was true.

I'm happy to (re) explain the logic of this, but I feel that it's self-evident!"

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5. Posted by Pavlo, 30/08/2022 9:36

"From the very beginning I said it's a terrible idea to change rules like that mid-season.
FIA should now be in fear of Ferrari joining the RB and MB game - they can now start complaining publicly that the new TD impacted their performance and involved big investment to redesign the car even though they never had such an issue as MB with hurting their driver. And demand another TD to compensate for it - this would be fair and put FIA in quite a bad situation."

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6. Posted by Motorsport-fan, 30/08/2022 8:39

"That victory was truly man and machine in perfect harmony."

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7. Posted by kenji, 30/08/2022 0:23

"It would appear that the lesson here is 'every dog has his day'. Mercedes/Hamilton et al are hurting bad and it shows up like a laser beam in the middle of a dark Cape Hatteras night. They are desperate to recover some credibility after so many long and dreary years of domination. Yes, they mastered the past but the future, the now, is a whole different story. The pleasures of 'schadenfreude' are grossly undersold. The GOAT even tried to pushback by claiming 'he was in my blind spot'...what a heap of old garbanzos. He knew where Alonso was and he tried to muscle/intimidate him. Alonso would be the very last driver to try that on! If, and I qualify this, Alonso was in Hamilton's blind spot he should've backed out as to continue is gross negligence with no regard for what might eventuate. Desperation.....after so many years of racing notched on his belt and he still makes rookie mistakes. Roll on Zandvoort."

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8. Posted by Tardis40, 29/08/2022 18:38

"Remember the Vettel era and the flexing front wing? It was legal. It passed the test. So they changed the test and it still passed.

Maybe think about improving your own car instead of trying to interfere with the competition."

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9. Posted by Chester, 29/08/2022 14:52

"Changing rules mid-season is prima facia not a great choice. If it were me I would have not done it. But I do think it is just-desert that the team that demonstrably porpoised the most and seemingly complained the most, fell in competiveness to Red Bull

Aero is Adrian Newey. The rest play catch-up. "

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10. Posted by kenji, 29/08/2022 12:27

"or a button being depressed...."

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11. Posted by Simon in Adelaide, 29/08/2022 12:24

"Is that a chain I hear jangling?"

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12. Posted by kenji, 29/08/2022 10:52

"Au contraire.....everything that I've read indicated that it was Mercedes who whinged/cried loudest and fully expected to benefit over the likes of Ferrari and Red Bull. Russell also was most vocal when complaining about flexi floors. If I'm wrong could you please furnish me with those opinions indicating that it was the opposite as I can't find any at all."

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13. Posted by Spindoctor, 29/08/2022 10:10

"It was clear from the outset that the "TD" would benefit RBR much more that Mercedes & some of the other teams with serious bouncing issues. I doubt that Wolff or Mercedes doubted this for a second.

Horner's silly attempts to suggest that Mercedes' support for the anti-bounce Directive continues to grate...."

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Horner thanks Wolff for technical directive

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