Horner senses 'paranoia' from McLaren: 'They had to adjust their rear wing'

The battle for the world title is exciting on track, but there is also drama off-track. In recent months, tension has increased between Red Bull and McLaren. It is showing no signs of slowing down. This time, the system to adjust ride height was under a magnifying glass, but according to Horner, there is nothing wrong.

"Every car has a tool that they can adjust the front of the bib. Ours is located at the front, in front of the footwell. It's been there for I think over three years. You've got to have the pedals out, other panels and pipe work out in order to be able to get to it. So it's like any other adjustment on the car it would be easier to adjust the rear roll bar than it would be to get to that component," Horner said on Sky Sports.

Horner hits back at McLaren

So why did the FIA still think action needed to be taken? "Because I think there's been a bit of moaning from one of our rivals. It's the FIA's job to look into these things. It's on a list of the open source components so it's been publicly available for the last three years. The FIA are happy with it. I think it's just to satisfy perhaps some paranoia elsewhere in the paddock," Horner replied.

Horner feels McLaren are searching for stories. "I feel that it's sometimes to distract from perhaps what's going on in your own house, then sometimes you try and light a fire somewhere else," he added before being asked if he thinks McLaren had a role to play in this. "There was an awful lot of noise about rear wings. McLaren had to change their rear wing yesterday."

McLaren itself claims this is not the case, but Horner cynically responds: "Oh really? It's part of Formula 1 and I'm sure there'll be other stuff that comes up between now and Abu Dhabi."

This article has been created in collaboration with Matt Gretton