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Christian Horner vents his frustrations over Liberty Media

Christian Horner vents his frustrations over Liberty Media

06-02-2019 13:34
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Christian Horner has expressed his frustrations as teams and drivers remain in the dark over the direction in which Liberty Media is taking Formula 1. He asks the bosses to present their plan for the future of the sport.

Last week, the Formula One Promoters' Association (FOPA) stated their concerns with the way in which the owners are working. Issues regarding lack of coverage on free-to-air TV, lack of clarity of new initiatives and the sudden chopping of long-standing F1 venues.

Horner, boss at Red Bull, discusses what he thinks is going wrong.

"The problem is, the way Liberty is trying to operate in a democratic way... the promoters are getting far more from Liberty than they ever got previously in terms of freedom and ability to do things there would be stronger restrictions on," Horner told ESPN.

"The more you give, the more instinctively they want. Bernie ran a really tight and hardship, it was a dictatorship in that if you didn't like it, you wouldn't have a race the following year. It's just a different way of operating."

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Horner then goes on to suggest Liberty Media may need time in order to adjust to how the sport differs from what they're used to in America.

"I think one thing Liberty finds frustrating is a lot of this business is conducted through the media. That's something they're not used to with American sport. There's that constant comparison of America sport and franchises versus Formula One -- American sport works in America, it doesn't work globally. Formula One, the learning curve they've had is that is has a different appeal in different markets," Horner added.

"You can window-dress and promote a movie as much as you like but if the movie hasn't got substance and isn't an exciting movie, people won't watch it. I think it's the content of what is Formula One that needs addressing for 2021 onwards.

"The more concerning question is what is their blueprint, both financially and regulatory in line with the FIA, for what they want Formula One to be from 2021 onwards. It already looks like the engine will stay the same and that's obviously been a fundamental issue over the last four or five years so we need to ensure that engines don't become an enormous performance differentiator like we've had in the early periods of this hybrid era."