Red Bull chief acts to stop Ferrari shadowing

RED BULL team principal Christian Horner has taken counter measures to guard against shadowing from Ferrari.

Advisor Helmut Marko, who acts as right-hand man to owner Dietrich Mateschitz, inflamed matters this week when he accused Ferrari of “espionage” during a race.

Marko said: “We have noticed that Ferrari are doing some kind of espionage.

“We called Mark Webber into the pits relatively late for his first stop and yet Ferrari managed to bring Alonso into the pits at the same time. They have thus responded to us.”

Ferrari actually shadowed Red Bull for Webber’s first three stops, with suspicions aroused as they made late calls for the Australian to pit on each occasion. With Webber stuck behind Alonso and unable to get past, the fourth time around, Red Bull sold Ferrari a dummy, sending out their pit crew, with the Maranello marque following.

Webber, however, stayed out, and that finally released him into clean air, albeit too late to clamber onto the podium and he had to settle for fourth.

Wary of Marko’s comments, and attempting to clarify the situation, Horner said: “There were some comments about Ferrari spying on us, and I think that has been misinterpreted.

“They obviously saw something we were doing that was giving away when we were going to stop and would call in Fernando.

“It wasn’t coincidence because every time we called Mark in, then Fernando would come down the pit lane, which is quite within the regulations.”