Christian Horner said he felt Red Bull are owed an apology from their Formula 1 rivals for the "reputational damage" caused by "accusations" relating to their cost cap breach.
Speculation has been rife ever since the FIA accused the team of overspending in the 2021 season more than two weeks ago. It was only on Friday that the details of their breach and their subsequent punishment were made public. But the FIA also made it clear that they accepted that Red Bull had not intended to overspend, and that there had been no bad faith from the team.
Some of Red Bull's rivals were happy to speak about it publicly, including Mercedes and Ferrari who called for the FIA to give out stiff penalties. And McLaren chief executive sent a leaked letter to the FIA in which Red Bull felt he had accused them of cheating.
While Red Bull have now accepted responsibility for their overspend and will "begrudgingly" comply with the penalties levied, they do not believe they owe an apology to their rivals and to fans. In fact, Horner went as far as to suggest other teams should be saying sorry for suggesting their overspend had been a deliberate act.
"I think, to be honest with you, we're due an apology from some of our rivals for some of the claims they have made," he told media including Mirror Sport. "We make no apology for the way we have performed and the way we have acted.
"We do take on the chin that there are lessons to be learned, and potentially mistakes have been made in our submission – with the benefit of hindsight and 20:20 vision. But there was no intent, nothing dishonest and certainly no cheating involved, which has been alleged in some corners.
"So I don't feel that we need to apologise. I feel there are lessons that have been learned, and everybody can learn from this. Hopefully now the chapter can close.
"We've take a very public pounding through the accusations made by other teams. We've had our drivers booed at circuits, and the reputational damage from those allegations has been significant. It's now time for that to stop, so we can move on."
As punishment for their overspend, the team will be fined £6m and lose 10% of its aerodynamic testing time over the next 12 months. In the same press conference, Horner described the sporting penalty as "draconian" and suggested it will have a "significant" impact on Red Bull's performance going forward.
