Red Bull to have Milton-Keynes crisis meeting

A crisis meeting will be held in the next few days at Red Bull’s Milton Keynes headquarters, in a bid to ease the ill-feeling in the wake of the Sebastian Vettel-Mark Webber shunt.

"The goal is to win the world championship with the fastest driver. Above any individual interest must be the general interest, and that is the success of the team," team advisor Helmut Marko said on Austrian television Sport und Talk aus dem Hangar-7.

"The two drivers do not need to go out for dinner with each other, but they must cooperate," he insisted.

Marko maintains that, prior to the contact whilst leading the Turkish grand prix, Webber’s race engineer Ciaron Pilbeam should have passed on the team’s instruction that Vettel was not yet in a fuel-saving mode because he had an extra lap of fuel.

"Why (he did not pass on the information) is still not entirely clear," said Marko. "This engineer simply had a blackout; he did not respond properly."

He insists the turning down of Webber’s engine did not amount to a team order.

"The message to Webber should have been ’You’re too slow. At this rate, Hamilton is going to be straight past you. If Vettel is faster, don’t fight against him, concentrate on Hamilton’.

"That is not a team order," Marko said.