Red Bull denies RB collusion over fastest lap

SINGAPORE — Red Bull team principal Christian Horner denied there was any coordination between his team and Red Bull-owned RB after Daniel Ricciardo prevented Lando Norris from securing the point for fastest lap at the Singapore Grand Prix.

Norris closed the gap to Max Verstappen in the drivers’ standings to 52 points with victory in Sunday’s race, but it could have been 51 points had he held onto the bonus point for fastest lap.

The McLaren driver held the fastest lap for the majority of the race, only to lose it after Ricciardo — who was running as the last car on the road — pitted ahead of the penultimate lap to fit fresh tyres and better Norris’ time on his final tour.

The bonus point is only awarded if a driver finishes inside the top 10, meaning Ricciardo did not score an extra point but he did deprive Norris of the point.

Both the Red Bull Racing team Verstappen drives for and the RB team Ricciardo drives for are owned by the same parent Red Bull company, leading to suggestions the two colluded to aid Verstappen’s title bid.

But Horner denied there was any coordination between the teams and said the decision to pit for fastest lap was a question for RB, also known as VCARB.

“Daniel obviously wanted to finish the race on a high,” Horner said. “You’d have to ask VCARB about that.”

Singapore could be Ricciardo’s last race in F1 as RB looks set to replace him with reserve driver Liam Lawson from the next round in Austin, Texas.

When asked by ESPN after the race, RB’s official line was that Ricciardo’s late stop had just been to send him out on a high in case it was his last race, with no thought given to the championship implications.

“Given this may have been Daniel’s last race, we wanted to give him the chance to savour it and go out with the fastest lap,” RB team principal Laurent Mekies added in a new release quote.

Speaking after the race, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said he had not anticipated RB taking the fastest lap with Ricciardo.

“I did not see it coming,” he said. “I was a little surprised that the highest priority of racing in Singapore was to go and score the fastest lap of the race.

“At the same time I have so much sympathy, support and friendship with Daniel that I’m just happy that he may add this fastest lap to his track record.”

Asked if it could be considered unsporting behaviour and therefore a breach of the FIA’s International Sporting Code, Stella underlined the importance of teams acting as individual entities but stopped short of making an accusation.

“Look, that is a big matter,” he said. “As soon as you invoke the sportsmanship, I think you need to approach this with a sense of responsibility that I want to have.

“I don’t know the facts, I just saw that Racing Bulls went for the fastest lap and they achieved it. But for me here to talk about sportsmanship and so on, I think it would be out of place.

“So I think we have to take it at face value, they scored the fastest lap and potentially as part of a longer-term conversation we need to put the sport in a position in which at any stage, being it track side or being it factory side, teams behave in a totally autonomous manner because this is a constructors’ championship, a drivers’ championship.”

Source: www.espn.com