Horner exonerates Webber engineer Ciaron Pilbeam

As Red Bull continues to put the pieces of its fractured team back together, boss Christian Horner has moved to exonerate Mark Webber’s race engineer.

Initially after the Australian crashed with his teammate Sebastian Vettel while they led in Turkey, Horner and team consultant Helmut Marko pointed the finger not only at Webber but also Ciaron Pilbeam.

Race engineer Pilbeam was accused of not passing on information about the charging Vettel to Webber, and conspiracy theorists believe he refused to implement a team order.

Moreover, the official video edit of the Istanbul race published by F1’s official website depicts Pilbeam instructing Webber to use his overtake button to repel Vettel’s attack.

And in an interview with the BBC published on Wednesday, Horner denied that he was calling on the pitwall for Webber to "move!" in the moments before the crash.

"I don’t think I actually said ’move’," said the Briton.

"Ciaron Pilbeam has taken a bit of flak recently. He had no instruction to tell mark to move out of the way, that is 100 per cent clear.

"There was no conspiracy trying to get one car past the other or getting one to slow down," added Horner.

He also admitted that team figures had been wrong to initially blame Webber for the incident.

"In the cold light of day it was a racing accident, nothing more, nothing less. It was wrong to blame either driver," said Horner.