DJM48:
Horner getting quite irate in the pre-FP3 Sky interviews in Singapore.
Major indiscretion can result in exclusion from competition, ie losing 2021 Driver’s World Championship.
Will be interesting. Lawyers will have a field day.
FIA won't endangered their current golden goose, aka Verstappen.
If they take away Verstappen's WDC, it just gonna give themselves another black eye, after the one Masi gave them, which still hasn't healed yet.
At most I see them do a 2007 McLaren. Verstappen gets to keep all his points, just like Hamilton did, but loses all Constructor points and excluded from the standing. An also place Red Bull on a suspended sentence, being watched very closely for their spending.
Or maybe perhaps worked out a back room deal where Verstappen and Perez retired every race from now to the end of the season with 'mechanical' failure. Leclerc can't possibly win every race so Verstappen's 2nd WDC is safe.
FIA is squeezed between a rock and a hard place. They don't have an easy 'out' where they can come out and still smelling like fresh. They will smell like shit no matter what they do this time around. Bring out the big hammer and all the new F1 fans, aka Max fans, will be up in arms. A slap on the wrist will means angering the other 9 teams, well 8, that worked hard to stay inside the budget, and also fuel more conspiracy theories where FIA is here to protect Verstappen, which they did plenty of times last year letting him off the hook for driving standard.
Now if they did strip Verstappen the title and give it to Hamilton, Hamilton certainly won't accept it as he doesn't want it handed to him like that. So now what? Give it to the 3rd place guy named Bottas? Or just leave it vacated?
Mercedes certainly don't have much beef with Red Bull last year, they won the Constructor after all, so whatever punishment for last year means absolutely nothing to them. Ferrari however might want them excluded so they can move up to 2nd place. This year Mercedes is so far off Red Bull, most they can hope for is to finish 2nd, which they might as they are closing in on Ferrari, so another moot point. For Ferrari, if Red Bull suddenly got penalized and cannot spend anymore money this year, they still won't be able to catch them, they gonna finish 2nd or 3rd regardless. But if Red Bull are penalized for 2023, then all bets are off. Ferrari could come out on top if Red Bull doesn't get any testing time or got severely chopped. Mercedes is going get a good boost to theirs regardless of what Red Bull is getting as they won't finish first.
The one outside factor will be Honda. Red Bull, well Horner, had been heavily courting Honda to come back and support their engine program for 2026. But if Red Bull got heavily penalized and won't be too competitive, Honda might get cold feet and says no to Horner. At that point Horner will be left holding the bags trying to answer to Mateschitz what the fuck happened. He lobbied very hard to turn down the Porsche offer which Mateschitz was leaning onto. if the FIA decision comes out before the engine application deadline and is a heavy penalty, Horner could very well get fired and Mateschitz could go back to Porsche about the original deal. At which point Porsche will be holding all the cards and get a even more favourable deal.
People keep speculating that it's Toto that's working the FIA, cause of last year. But as explained, Mercedes really had nothing to gain. Ferrari on the other hand does. And Ferrari does gets some leeways dealing with the FIA because of their status. Porsche could also be working some certain angles in some degree to get their entry into F1. Also, to some degree, every team in the paddock won't mind seeing Red Bull gets knock off their porch as everyone gets to move up one spot and that means more money for them. Red Bull don't have any friends in the pit lane to say it bluntly, other than Alpha Tauri.
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