Radio restriction rule is 'rubbish' - Horner

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Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has described the current radio restrictions in Formula One as "rubbish".

Nico Rosberg was demoted from second to third in the British Grand Prix as a result of a ten second time penalty handed out for information regarding a gearbox problem given to him over team radio. Horner was asked about the incident while Rosberg's investigation was still ongoing, and he criticised the regulations before explaining the importance of the FIA's penalty.

"First of all, I think the rule is rubbish," Horner said. "It doesn’t make a great deal of sense, but the rules are the rules and on two counts, it sounds like instructions were given that breached that protocol. One was the switch change that was made and then the second was on how to drive the car with the seventh gear issue that they had.

"What will be interesting to see is the precedent that the stewards now come up with because if it is just a five second penalty or a reprimand, it is all fair game for the rest of the year and there will be loads of messages, where we will take into account whether or not it is worth five seconds or not, or a reprimand given to the car.

"So, I think what will be interesting to see is the precedent that is set by Charlie [Whiting] and the stewards because they made it very clear, explicitly clear, going into this weekend what their expectations were."

Explaining why he feels the regulation is a bad one, Horner says the complexity of the cars are central to the argument.

"The cars are technically very complex and you can understand why Mercedes would want to give that message to keep their driver running. Now it is a team sport at the end of the day and the cars are a lot more complicated than they were even four years ago for the drivers to be able to work out what they should and shouldn’t be doing.

"The question going forward is: Are these rules right for Formula One? That is a different question."

Mercedes lodged its intention to appeal the decision on Sunday evening.

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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.