McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown says he will ask questions relating to Daniel Ricciardo’s fastest lap at the end of the Singapore Grand Prix, as it helped Red Bull.
RB opted to pit Ricciardo from 18th place and fit a new set of soft tires to take the fastest lap away from Lando Norris, a move he duly completed to prevent Norris scoring an extra point. It meant race-winner Norris only outscored Max Verstappen by seven points rather than eight, and Brown believes it highlights a problem with Red Bull owning two different teams.
“That’s a nice A/B team sporting thing that I didn’t think was allowed…” Brown told SiriusXM. “But hey, that’s not the first time we’ve seen it, probably won’t be the last.
“I’ll certainly ask some questions. It’s something I’ve spoken about in the past and I think it illustrates that it does happen, because I think you wouldn’t have made that pit stop to go for that. It’s not going to get anyone a point, so I think it does illustrate the issue around that topic.”
Brown raised concerns relating to Red Bull’s ownership of RB over the past year, but Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says the teams make their own decisions.
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“Racing Bulls stopped and did the fastest lap at the end of the race!” Horner also told SiriusXM. “There’s nothing more to it than that. Kevin Magnussen would have had it had he not gone wide earlier in the race and he has a Ferrari engine. Every team has its own independence.”
When it was put to Horner that Magnussen had to pit due to a puncture, while RB risked a car that was finishing 18th, he admitted the ownership situation would lead to scrutiny.
“Sure, sure. It’s always going to get raised because it’s the same ownership, so it’s inevitable that question’s going to get raised,” he said. “But Daniel’s lap in a grand prix car… He wanted to… Remember, he gets paid a bonus on a fastest lap.”
While Verstappen said he was thankful to Ricciardo for the move, Norris himself downplayed any frustration at the lost point.
“Well done, Daniel,” Norris said. “I don’t know. Nothing I can do, so good on him. I did my best at trying to get a quickest lap when the tires were in a good condition in the middle, but I can’t have them all. I’ve done my best at trying to get quickest laps over the last few weekends and I’ve been able to get them more often than not. But I can’t, on a hard tire in the middle of a stint, beat a guy on a new soft. That’s just life.”