Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFormula 1

'F1 is at a critical stage' - Horner

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Christian Horner believes "F1 is at a critical stage" ahead of a crucial Strategy Group meeting on Wednesday.

The top six teams will meet with Bernie Ecclestone and the FIA to discuss potential regulation changes for F1's future, with the meeting the final opportunity to propose tweaks to the 2016 regulations before the World Motor Sport Council next sits. With FIA president Jean Todt saying F1 is facing "a headache, not a cancer", Red Bull team principal Horner disagrees.

“I think F1 is at a critical stage," Horner said. "I think fundamentally Formula One is still a fantastic product, it still has an enormous fanbase and appeal, I just think we’re not putting on a particularly great show at the moment. I think the cars are too easy to drive, I think they are not spectacular enough. You have only got to go to Goodwood to witness where we’ve come from to where we are now.

“Pierre Gasly drove at the test for us in Austria and said in the GP2 car on the straights not so much difference and surprisingly in the corners not a huge amount of difference, the main difference being on the braking capability. [He said] the car was actually easier to drive because of power steering and some of the refinement of the controls. He then drove the V10 car - RB1 - that we had at Goodwood and was: ‘Wow, this is a serious beast’.

“I think that we need to look at how we move the product forward. What do we want Formula One to be? Is it purely a technical exercise or does it need to be entertainment. I believe there needs to be an element of both.”

With Horner having previously called for the FIA and FOM to take power away from the teams, he also says Todt's proposed mandate is not required to make such a move.

"It doesn’t need [a mandate]. It just needs the FOM and FIA to agree, they have the necessary vote. If they agree collectively it doesn’t matter what the teams say."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.