Horner: No impact from FIA ruling

The team has been suspected by its rivals of being able to change the ride height of its car between qualifying and the race, but the FIA has declared the RB6 perfectly legal and on Sunday faxed all the F1 teams to confirm that anyone who implements such a system will be contravening the regulations.

Horner is adamant that it does not affect Red Bull. When asked by AUTOSPORT whether any changes would have to be made to the RB6, he replied: "No. The car that we will take to China will be exactly the same mechanically as it was in the first three races. It has absolutely no impact on the specification of our car."

And when asked whether he expected rivals to have to make changes, he said: "I don't know what they have on their cars, so all I know is that it has no impact on Red Bull, despite suggestions to the contrary."

He added that the accusations levelled at Red Bull are nothing more than a reflection on the team's early season pace.

"Fundamentally, we've got a fast car. The guys have done a good job and it's inevitably one of those things that people perhaps make accusations when you are running competitively," he said. "But I take it as a compliment. I'm sure if we were running 14th, similar accusations wouldn't be made."

Still, Horner welcomed the clarification from the FIA, which said: "Any system device or procedure, the purpose and/or effect of which is to change the set-up of the suspension, while the car is under parc ferme conditions will be deemed to contravene art 34.5* of the sporting regulations."

"Obviously the FIA has felt the necessity to clarify, and I think they've done exactly the right and the responsible thing, as it avoids a development rush in this area that inevitably wouldn't be cheap," Horner told AUTOSPORT.

"It's a sensible ruling. It inevitably saves teams spending a huge amount of money on R&D to create such systems and obviously if anybody does run one, it would be in clear breach of the technical regulations. We're more than happy with the FIA's verdict, which we fully support.

"With these things, sometimes the wording and the spirit of the regulations leaves different interpretations and it's great to see that on this occasion it has been clarified and that any form of active ride is therefore illegal."