'Total rubbish!' | F1's flexi floor saga - and Horner's retort to suspicions

Christian Horner has dismissed suggestions that Red Bull could be one of the teams affected by a new F1 directive as "total rubbish", hitting back at Mercedes counterpart Toto Wolff amid an on-going 'flexi floor' debate.

The FIA, F1's governing body, have confirmed that a new technical directive on the car's floors will be in place from August's Belgian Grand Prix, resisting pressure from some of the top teams to loosen the clampdown.

The directive is mainly centered around safety and trying to reduce the porpoising of cars with a new metric. But the FIA are also introducing measures to stop teams from flexing their floors, following speculation that some were exploiting a loophole to boost performance.

Mercedes, F1's previous dominant force, believe Red Bull and Ferrari, 2022's fastest teams, have more flexible floors than the rules intend, with the focus on the wooden plank and skid blocks underneath the cars.

Asked by Sky Sports F1 whether he thought some teams were circumnavigating the rules, team boss Wolff said in Austria: "I think so. I haven't been able to squeeze the skids of certain teams."

Questioned on who those certain teams were, he answered: "Yeah, we are looking at our competitors."

Both Red Bull and Ferrari have been adamant about their car's legality and they have passed all official FIA checks up to this point. They have also both voiced their discontent about the new technical directive.

But Horner slammed the notion that Red Bull were utilising a flexing floor to find performance, while also joking that Wolff was "referring to the cars around him at the moment" - a dig at Mercedes' lack of form at the front.

"That's total rubbish," insisted Horner. "Absolutely no issues or concerns on our floor."

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