Haas rejects Red Bull’s ’customer car’ idea

Gunther Steiner has rejected fellow F1 team boss Christian Horner’s ’customer car’ proposal amid the sport’s coronavirus crisis.

Horner, boss of Red Bull, said that amid rumours several smaller teams could fail over the next few months, customer cars could be the answer.

"I would be in full favour of supplying for the next two years a full customer car," he said.

"The smaller teams would run just as race teams and they would reduce their costs enormously. If I was (Alfa Romeo backer) Finn Rausing or Gene Haas, I would buy a Ferrari or a Mercedes or a Red Bull," Horner added.

But although Steiner runs one of those most reportedly endangered small teams, he rejects Horner’s plan.

"The plan is no longer really relevant because all the teams have already found a way to deal with it," he told Ziggo Sport.

He is referring to the fact that development of the as yet unraced 2020 cars has been effectively frozen, and they will be raced again in 2021.

The proposed sweeping 2021 rules have therefore been delayed until 2022.

"To be honest, we don’t need any additional money," Steiner said. "We want the big teams to operate with a smaller budget.

"That way we can become more competitive."

Horner’s plan, he said, would mean the smaller teams never have the opportunity to beat their big rivals.

"We would be customer teams, and the bigger teams would actually manipulate our performance because we would drive a year-old car," Steiner said.

"They would always be ahead of us. With a budget cap, we still can’t match the budgets of the larger teams, but at least we would be closer."