Christian Horner has revealed Queen Elizabeth II asked him about Red Bull’s infamous Multi-21 and the subsequent driver feud during a lunch with Her Majesty.
An already tense relationship between Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber blew up at the 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix when the German infamously disobeyed team orders from Red Bull to hold station behind his team-mate.
With 13 laps to go, Red Bull were running 1-2 with Vettel behind the Australian only for the then three-time World Champion to ignore team orders, pass Webber around the outside of Turn 4 and steal the win.
“Multi-21, Seb, yeah, Multi-21,” Webber said with a shake of his head to his team-mate in the cooldown room.
The team-mates spoke about it days later with Webber declaring “the ensuing conversation was the most disappointing moment of our entire relationship.
“He said he was p*ssed off by what I had said on the podium in Malaysia, that while he respected me as a driver he had no respect for me as a person.
“That was a heavy line for me. I simply said ‘then our relationship is in trouble – that’s it’.”
The driver feud even came to the attention of Queen Elizabeth II, Her Majesty quizzing Horner about it during a lunch event.
“She loved her horses obviously, a real passion of hers, competitive spirit,” Horner recalled in an interview with Sky Sports F1.
“But I remember being invited to a lunch at Buckingham Palace by herself and Prince Philip.
“There were very few of us there and she’d obviously been well briefed.
“And she asked me…we sat down for lunch and she said ‘what’s going on with your drivers? Why don’t they get on?”
Heading out for FP2 at Monza with a special tribute to Her Majesty The Queen Elizabeth II. pic.twitter.com/2fLwTTWkcT
— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) September 9, 2022
The Red Bull team boss went on to pay tribute to Queen Elizabeth II, who passed away at the age of 96 on Thursday.
“She was just the most remarkable person, immediately put you at ease. She had a sense of humour as well. She’ll be sorely, sorely missed,” he added.
“Just tremendously sad because she’s been the stability for such a long period of time that it’s almost unimaginable to think of her not being there. She’s on every coin, every pound note.
“It’s just a real shame.”
Read more: Lewis Hamilton posts touching social media tribute to The Queen
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