Christian Horner hits back with “fully investigated” and “dismissed” reminder

Red Bull F1 team principal Christian Horner has urged critics to “draw a line” under his alleged inappropriate behaviour after the accuser was suspended by the team.

The female employee who accused Horner of inappropriate misconduct was suspended with full pay on Thursday.

It’s the latest development in a saga that has rocked Red Bull and F1 as a whole over the past month.

While Horner was cleared of any wrongdoing following an independent investigation, the story didn’t stop there.

On Thursday in Bahrain, alleged material from the investigation was leaked to F1 journalists, team bosses and officials from an anonymous email account.

Horner - and his wife, Geri Horner - presented a united front on race day in Bahrain, but things escalated after Jos Verstappen’s bombshell comments later that evening.

Ahead of practice in Saudi Arabia, it transpired that Horner’s accuser had been suspended by Red Bull.

Horner addressed the situation in the FIA press conference ahead of second practice.

"I can't comment on anything that's confidential between the employee and the company,” Horner said.

"Obviously there has been a lot of coverage surrounding this, but one has to go back to the basis of a grievance was raised, it was fully investigated, and it was dismissed. From there we move onwards.

"I think an awful lot has been made out of this. Obviously it has been of great interest in different elements of the media for different reasons. I think the time now is to look forward and draw a line under it.”

Horner wants to focus on the track action with Red Bull favourites to take both titles in 2024.

"We are here to go racing, we are here as a Formula 1 team, and the time now is to focus on what is going on on track and the performance of the cars and the drivers, where the spotlight should be during the course of a Grand Prix weekend,” he added.