Christian Horner made it clear he expects the FIA to investigate how details of Red Bull's cost cap breach were leaked before the official announcement.
Last week, Formula 1's governing body came to an agreement with the team over the penalty they should face for going over the budget cap during the 2021 season. It was only then that details of how much Red Bull overspent by were officially released.
But the numbers matched those that had been rumoured for several days beforehand. And, earlier in the process, there had been plenty of whispers around the paddock that Red Bull and Aston Martin were in breach of the rules before event he FIA had said as much.
The fact supposedly confidential financial information appears to have been made public before it should have is of great concern to Red Bull. Horner said as much as he piled pressure upon the governing body to look into where the leak came from.
"The accusations made in Singapore were extremely upsetting for every single member of staff, all our partners, everyone involved within Red Bull," the team principal said. "Obviously, any form of leakage is hugely worrying. It's something that we expect to be followed up."
Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko made a similar point when speaking with Sky Germany. "The FIA says they don't know how this came out, but it's weird that certain things from an ongoing process are being exposed," said the Austrian. "That's defamatory. I just find it amazing that something like this gets public."
Speaking to media, including Mirror Sport, about the cost cap breach, Horner made it clear his team had only "begrudgingly" accepted the punishment of a £6m fine and a loss of 10% of their wind tunnel time. He said he felt it was more important to move past the subject rather than fight it further.
"We do take on the chin that there are lessons to be made. Potentially mistakes have been made in our submission, which with the benefit of hindsight and 20/20 vision, everybody can be a specialist," Horner added. "But there was no intent, there was nothing dishonest, and there was certainly no cheating involved which has been alleged in certain quarters.
"So I don't feel that we need to apologise. I think there are lessons that have been learned. Everybody can learn from this. We've taken our pounding in public, we've taken a very public pounding, through the accusations that have been made by other teams.
"Our drivers have been booed at circuits. And the reputational damage that has been made by allegations has been significant. The time has come for that to stop."
