Horner just sued de Telegraaf so there is your claim. It's not if the have 100% proof in hands a screenshot of messages isn't useable in court (As target of threatmessages the Dutch Police said it wasn't useable in court)

They don't make up stories but they often take something and makes it bigger but after sued they have to reverse the accusations and pay lots of money. Their Proof is some whatsapp messages which is very hard to use in court… So just wait with what Red Bull brings out.

Haha :)

@bascb

Newspapers are actually quite good at insinuating things in a way that allows them to escape legal problems even when there is nothing to it. I've seen it time and again.

So I don't believe them until they actually provide the receipts.

@sjaakfoo

What do you mean by 'substance?' That the claim has been made, or that there is actual evidence for it?

The newspaper merely claims the former and in itself that means nothing. I can just accuse you right now of sexual misconduct and then it would be a fact that the claim has been made, but there would be no facts to support that claim.

Unfortunately I cannot access the article, apparently you need a subscription. only the title and it does not say much. Also I cannot read Dutch but this should not be too much of a problem with online translation available

Ok, I should’ve wrote a bit more sarcasm in that last paragraph. I’m not seriously suggesting Bernie actually arranged this.
Though to me, a F1-in-the-90s kid, both this news and Hamilton’s move to Ferrari, have something very Bernie-esque to it. Can’t put a finger on it - divide and conquer, spice up the season…stuff like that :)

I’ve never seen a proposal to use last year’s cars to be honest.

I'm used to being ignored.

The newspaper would most certainly NOT publish any story with so much claims of facts and information they claim to have been privilege to unless it was true. Otherwise they would already be in a courtroom with Horner / RB filing to stop publishing and claim damages for publishing something like this.

While I am VERY much not a fan of the Telegraaf and their coverage and columnists on most topics, their F1 coverage really tends to be incredibly well sourced, be it at times somewhat influenced by obvious short lines to the Verstappen camp. They certainly put a sensationalist spin on their headlines though.

And they would most certainly NOT publish this unless they had enough sources / material to support the claims in the article (vetted through lawyers would be a certainty to cover against Horner/RB potentially suing them if not).

As far as I know Bernie is rather on the friendly side of Horner, so him getting involved somehow is probably another sign of Horner using whatever means at his disposal to kill the story (next to offering the employee to settle for big money after he was contacted by the Telegraaf for comment), I'd say Bernie is as likely to go for disinformation and a "who knows where the truth lies" strategy as Putin is, trying to get us to doubt everything.

Surely there’s something though right, or the investigation would have concluded, Horner’s name would be clear, and he’d be free to make statements about how outrageous and ridiculous they are, like what Wolff was able to do.

They might be confident that it's true, but it wouldn't be the first time that an eagerness to have a juicy 'Premium' article gets the better of a journalist - even the good ones. If it's true, we'll know in due time.

It's a bit like the old Soviet joke about a man who came to a newspaper kiosk every morning, looked at the papers, but never bought anything. One day the owner asks what he's looking for. 'An obituary', he says. The owner explains that those aren't on the front page. To which the man responds; 'This one will be.'

As Eric van Haren gets his news straight from Jos Verstappen -a former Telegraaf columnist- and explicietely states he has seen the screenshots of Horner’s messages (which, even for a semi-tabloid newspaper like the Telegraaf is a matter of journalistic integrity to not just lie about), then yes, I’d say there’s a lot of substance here. The chances of this being a fabrication is easily as low as 1%.

Is there anything of substance behind the accusation? We just don't know. But the allegation is ridiculously easy to put forward even in case it is totally factitious, and brutally damaging when publicized enough. I cannot imagine no better way to put a spanner in the works of the Red Bull Team by a rival outfit. The worst part of it all is that even if no scrap of evidence is shown and CH gets acquitted, the accusing party gets scot-free after causing a huge lot of damage.

Ruben, it's fairly clear that you're suggesting Bernie Ecclestone planted that story, but the theory doesn't seem to make much sense when you think about it.

Quite simply, why would it be to Bernie's benefit to plant such a story when Bernie was removed from FOM seven years ago? There is no benefit to him, given he no longer has any ties to the sport, and his political influence has collapsed to the point that he is considered largely irrelevant. Furthermore, given that Horner is one of the few avenues through which Bernie can exercise some influence, why would he actively sabotage him?

I would enjoy watching different drivers performing and all the inconclusive however entertaining discussion about how much the speed of each team is coming from the car or driver.
I'm just not sure how to solve the need of car changes to support different drivers in the cockpit/setup preference or the cost of racing a third chassis.

Erik van Haren has good sources, but indeed, De Telegraaf doesn't mind bringing news as sensationalist as possible.

As long as we don't know more details it's a trial by media and it could be either a tip of an ice berg or an affair gone wrong and someone wanting to air the dirty laundry. If more people come forward with similar complaints Horner is toast for sure. And anyway: he should've known better.

What surprises me most is the timing. It's off season, F1 journalists don't have much to write about. What better moment to try and unsettle the most dominant team in F1 history? I know a man (small, grey man with round glasses, somewhere in his 90s) who would happily pay for this story to surface.

The discussion is most likely, who is paying for the damages (FIA or track organizers) cause when it comes to getting money from organizations like that you have better luck drawing blood from a stone.

Surely there's something though right, or the investigation would have concluded, Horner's name would be clear, and he'd be free to make statements about how outrageous and ridiculous they are, like what Wolff was able to do.

De Telegraaf would be absolutely crazy to make up the story that they've seen the messages, and are in enough contact with the source to know the value of the hush-money offered, just to sell some papers. The defamation from ruining a career as big as Horner's would have to outweigh whatever money they'd make, not to mention the reputation hit, nobody would trust anything they say ever again.

I've never seen a proposal to use last year's cars to be honest. That would surely be a logistical nightmare and totally at odds with the green agenda F1 is trying to promote. I've only ever seen proposals of 10 car young driver grids which are beset with the issues I raised in the comment above.

The F2 driver conflict I mention is that if the sprint races are featured at every round, like MotoGP, then there will be an overlap where the F2 driver would have to do f2 practice, quali, sprint and feature race as well as an f1 warm up (surely), sprint quali and sprint race all before Saturday evening. That is clearly too much for any driver so the teams would have to decide which championship they'd like their driver to compete. Full F2 or Sprint F1. That is to the detriment of both series imo.

SteveP, that is because the original proposal put forward by AlanD did propose exactly that - i.e. that the sprint race would use the same cars as the main race, but the team would use a reserve driver instead of their main driver.