Red Bull Deny Support for Minardi
Minardi must play by the rules or risk exclusion from Sunday's season-opening Australian Grand Prix, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said on Thursday.

Minardi must play by the rules or risk exclusion from Sunday's season-opening Australian Grand Prix, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said on Thursday.
Horner said Red Bull, which took over from Jaguar in November, could not support Minardi boss Paul Stoddart's request to be allowed to race last year's car with unmodified aerodynamics.
"I sympathise with his position but rules are rules," Horner told Reuters. "They are there for a reason and we all have to abide by them. My position and that of Red Bull is that nothing would be more frustrating for us in a debut race to finish ninth with a Minardi ahead of us and a point taken from us."
Stoddart had said earlier that all the teams except champions Ferrari had signed a document agreeing to his request.
However others suggested his list of signatures dated from September and included those of former Jaguar boss Tony Purnell, dismissed by Red Bull in January, and Eddie Jordan who has since sold his struggling team.
Minardi do have their 2005 aerodynamics package in Melbourne but have not tested it, raising potential safety concerns. They plan to introduce their new car next month.
Minardi must either ensure their car complies with the regulations, with front and rear wings changed from last year, or secure a special dispensation from all the other teams before Friday's practice.
Horner's words suggested that would not now happen and undermined Stoddart's claim that only Ferrari boss Jean Todt was standing in his team's way. Todt was due to arrive in Melbourne on Thursday evening and Stoddart said he planned to meet him.
"Tonight when Todt gets in I'm going to go to his hotel," the Australian said. "I hope that this can all be sorted out in the hotel away from the track and that tomorrow morning I can proudly say there are 10 signatures.
"Effectively without that signature we're in trouble."
Stoddart said Todt had told him previously that he would not sign "because you have had bad things to say about Ferrari for the last three months."
Australian Mark Webber, who finished fifth on his Grand Prix debut with Minardi in 2002 and now drives for Williams, said he would be very disappointed if the team could not compete.
But Ferrari's seven times world champion Michael Schumacher questioned the team's position.
"Imagine if they made a new rule in soccer where you start playing with 10 people and there's always one team that's not doing very well," he said. "Would you accept that they will be allowed to play with 11?"

Now Red Bull says it will not support Minardi
Interview: Timothy Collings with Jenson Button

Latest news
Top 10 Brabham drivers ranked: Piquet, Lauda, Gurney and more
Its 30 years since the Brabham team started its last world championship grand prix. Time to pick out the best drivers of the once-great Formula 1 squad.
Why F1 2022 tech isn’t all about porpoising and sidepods
Once fears over identikit Formula 1 cars were allayed by visibly different approaches to sidepods and floors, other novel design features have cropped up around the rest of the car.
Bottas feels greater "human effect" on F1 car performance at Alfa Romeo
Valtteri Bottas feels he is able to have a greater "human effect" on the performance of his Alfa Romeo Formula 1 car compared to what he found at Mercedes.
Norris: Long-term McLaren F1 deal allows for better work-life balance
Lando Norris believes his long-term Formula 1 deal with McLaren has allowed him to strike a better work-life balance and relax more away from racing.
The 10 stories to watch out for across the rest of the 2022 F1 season
It’s 13 down, nine to go as the Formula 1 teams pause for breath in the summer break. But what can we expect to happen over the next three months from Belgium to Abu Dhabi? Here's the key storylines to keep an eye out for the rest of the 2022 season
The inconvenient truth about F1’s ‘American driver’ dream
OPINION: The Formula 1 grid's wait for a new American driver looks set to continue into 2023 as the few remaining places up for grabs - most notably at McLaren - look set to go elsewhere. This is despite the Woking outfit giving tests to IndyCar aces recently, showing that the Stateside single-seater series still has some way to go to being seen as a viable feeder option for F1
How a bad car creates the ultimate engineering challenge
While creating a car that is woefully off the pace is a nightmare scenario for any team, it inadvertently generates the test any engineering department would relish: to turn it into a winner. As Mercedes takes on that challenge in Formula 1 this season, McLaren’s former head of vehicle engineering reveals how the team pulled of the feat in 2009 with Lewis Hamilton
The under-fire F1 driver fighting for his future
Personable, articulate and devoid of the usual racing driver airs and graces, Nicholas Latifi is the last Formula 1 driver you’d expect to receive death threats, but such was the toxic legacy of his part in last year’s explosive season finale. And now, as ALEX KALINAUCKAS explains, he faces a battle to keep his place on the F1 grid…
The strange tyre travails faced by F1’s past heroes
Modern grand prix drivers like to think the tyres they work with are unusually difficult and temperamental. But, says MAURICE HAMILTON, their predecessors faced many of the same challenges – and some even stranger…
The returning fan car revolution that could suit F1
Gordon Murray's Brabham BT46B 'fan car' was Formula 1 engineering at perhaps its most outlandish. Now fan technology has been successfully utilised on the McMurtry Speirling at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, could it be adopted by grand prix racing once again?
Hamilton's first experience of turning silver into gold
The seven-time Formula 1 world champion has been lumbered with a duff car before the 2022 Mercedes. Back in 2009, McLaren’s alchemists transformed the disastrous MP4-24 into a winning car with Lewis Hamilton at the wheel. And now it’s happening again at his current team, but can the rate of progress be matched this year?
Why few could blame Leclerc for following the example of Hamilton’s exit bombshell
OPINION: Ferrari's numerous strategy blunders, as well as some of his own mistakes, have cost Charles Leclerc dearly in the 2022 Formula 1 title battle in the first half of the season. Though he is locked into a deal with Ferrari, few could blame Leclerc if he ultimately wanted to look elsewhere - just as Lewis Hamilton did with McLaren 10 years prior