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During a team principals’ press conference on the first day of pre-season testing, Toto Wolff was the only team boss to comment on Christian Horner’s investigation.
The big story over the past few weeks in Formula 1 has been an investigation into unspecified allegations of misconduct by Christian Horner, made by a female Red Bull Racing employee.
Horner has since denied any wrongdoing, but RBR’s parent company Red Bull GMbH decided to conduct an independent investigation into the allegations.
During a press conference held in Bahrain, between the morning and afternoon pre-season testing sessions, five present team principals were asked what the fact that Horner remains in his Red Bull team boss role, while under ongoing investigation, says about “F1’s attitude to sexual equality”.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff was the only team boss to answer this question.
“I think it’s clear,” the Austrian said.
“Formula 1 and what the teams do, we stand for inclusion, equality, fairness, diversity and that’s not only talking about it but living it day-in, day-out.
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“And I think these are the standards we’re setting ourselves. We are a global sport, one of the most important sports platforms in the world, and we are role models.
“But having said that, there is a lot of speculation that’s been happening over the last weeks, speculation that we have heard of, and lots of things that are going on.
“And I think what’s important in that stage, for a process with rigour… What Red Bull has started as an independent investigation, if this is done in the right way with transparency and with rigour, I think that’s something that we need to look at – what the outcomes are and what it means for Formula 1, and how we can learn from that.
“Because we want to talk about racing cars and we want to talk about the sport rather than these kind of very critical topics, that are more [than] just a team’s issue…
“It’s a phenomenon or it’s an issue for all of Formula 1 and in general for every individual that works out there,” Wolff concluded.
