- Red Bull
Horner: Crowd-funding should be banned
Christian Horner has criticised Caterham's crowd-funding plan, saying fans should not be expected to bail a team out of difficulty.
Shortly after it emerged rivals Marussia had ceased trading on Friday, Caterham's administrators announced plans to raise £2.5m through pledges by November 14 to make the finale at Abu Dhabi. The team had already surpassed 20% of its target on Saturday morning but Red Bull boss Horner does not support the policy.
"It's very difficult; certainly I don't agree with fans having to fund a team," Horner told Sky about Caterham's situation. "The fans pay to be entertained by the teams, they shouldn't have to pay for a team. The concept of that is wrong and shouldn't be allowed. It's important Formula One doesn't do it's dirty washing in public."
The big teams recently baulked at suggestions there should be more parity in revenue distribution in F1, with Horner convinced help for the smaller teams has to come from higher up.
"It's important that the teams, together with the commercial rights holder [Bernie Ecclestone] and the governing body, talk through what are the issues and what we do to create a better environment going forward. Last time we had a bit of a crisis at the end of 2008 when we lost a couple of teams, with Honda pulling out, and BMW, that's exactly what happened and there were immediately measures put in place that genuinely saved costs for all the competitors."
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