Aston Martin "naive" to think F1 floor rules can change mid-season - Horner

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has dismissed Aston Martin’s suggestion that Formula 1 could make a U-turn on its floor regulations for 2021.

In response to Otmar Szafnauer’s comments, where he outlined his hopes for F1 to reverse the floor changes introduced for this season, Horner labelled his suggestion as "naive".

Aston Martin believes low-rake cars such as its own and Mercedes have been negatively impacted by the rule change, while Red Bull and AlphaTauri’s high-rake philosophies have benefitted.

Horner says it’s too early to draw any conclusions as Mercedes won the season-opener in Bahrain and look to be the team to beat at Imola.

"I’m slightly surprised to hear that, Horner said after FP2 at Imola. "I’ve heard rumblings but I haven’t heard it like you’ve just spelt out. Firstly we had a sample of one that Mercedes won that race with what you would classify as a low rake car, with maybe equal if not better tyre degradation than what we had in Bahrain.

"They’ve looked mighty impressive here and we’ve only run at one circuit so far. But ignoring all of that, there is a process for regulations to be introduced and they were voted through unanimously through the different regulations that Aston Martin or Racing Point would have had to vote for before being passed through the FIA commission and the World Council and they were all voted through unanimously."

While Red Bull enjoyed four years of success in the early 2010s, changes to the regulations such as the banning of blown diffusers at the end of 2011 were introduced in an attempt to slow the Milton Keynes-based outfit down.

Horner believes such regulation changes and the impact they may have on certain teams are simply part of the sport.

“Of course it does, that’s the nature of the game, whether it’s blown diffusers, double diffusers, flexi wings, non-flexi wings, F ducts, front wing as I mentioned just a couple of years ago, Horner added. “It’s part of F1, the regulations evolve and change and you’ve got to swing with those punches.

“That is F1, we’ve got a big regulation change for next year, and the teams know that and that’s been part of the sport for many, many years."