Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has hit out at Formula One's proposed regulations for 2019.
Having secured a majority vote at last month's F1 Commission, changes will be made to front wings, brake ducts and the Drag Reduction System in 2019 in a bid to improve wheel-to-wheel racing and allow cars to closely follow each other.
Speaking to the media yesterday in Barcelona, FIA's head of technical Nikolas Tombazis believed the changes would improve racing but Horner is less than convinced claiming the new set of regulations have been rushed through and the changes will result in teams having to spend significantly more on development and changing their cars to meet next season's regulations.
"Sometimes this sport has the ability to shoot itself in the foot,'' Horner told Sky Sports. "The work that has been done for 2021 is all good stuff the problem is a snapshot of that has been taken and hasn't been fully analysed and there are no proven conclusions from it. It has then been rushed into a set of regulations that completely conflict with existing regulations so they are now scrapping around trying to sort that out this weekend.
"It completely changes the philosophy of the car because the front wing will be wider and different. The point that the air meets the air is the front wing and that then changes everything behind it: the suspension, the bodywork, absolutely every single component. We talk about costs and being responsible but what has just been introduced is a completely new concept which will cost millions and millions of pounds.''
2018 began in dull fashion in Australia and this fact is why Horner believes that these changes for 2019 have been rushed through. The Red Bull boss argues that the FIA should be looking at the types of circuits and tyre compounds, and how they impact racing rather than making changes to the technical regulations.
"It was rushed after Melbourne because there was not a lot of overtaking, when has there ever been a lot of overtaking in Melbourne, and then we've had three great races since then. Shouldn't we be looking at the tracks and the tyre compounds and how they influence races rather than burdening the teams with what will be hundreds of millions in costs.
"If you look at the nature of the circuits, long straights with big stops and hairpins like China, Baku and Bahrain they were all good races. Those types of circuits always produce good races. This will probably be a boring race on Sunday because this track even with the slowest corner into the hairpin is still pretty quick and you've got a fast corner going into it.''