Christian Horner’s visit to the Mercedes factory will not happen

It appears Red Bull boss Christian Horner will not be paying a visit to the Mercedes factory after the ‘terms and conditions’ of the prize excludes him.

Christian Horner won a visit of the Mercedes facility in Brackley during the Autosport Awards on Sunday night. 

Horner was photographed on social media bidding between £3,000 and £4,000 for a tour of his competitor’s plant. Bids on various things from Formula 1 teams, including Mercedes’, could be put.

When it was revealed that the Briton had won a more than $5000 bid at an awards presentation to have a guided tour of arch rival Mercedes’ Brackley headquarters, it lighted up the F1 community.

Horner reasoned that bidding on the tour and seeing the Mercedes factory would be a smart idea. Red Bull will do everything possible to defeat the team in 2022, including beating them in the constructors’ championship.

“I’d like to take Adrian (Newey), Pierre Wache, maybe Paul Field, our head of production,” the Red Bull boss said.

“It will be very interesting to see how Mercedes spends its budget.”

However, Mercedes maintains that Horner might be explicitly excluded from the prize, according to the “terms and conditions”.

“We haven’t discussed it yet,” he said.

“But to do so, we’d have to waive the terms and conditions under which it (the tour) was offered.”

“Always pays to read the small print!”

As a matter of fact, “members of other Formula 1 teams” appear to be excluded from the tour’s terms and conditions.