FIA ready for Red Bull’s next charge

THE Malaysian Grand Prix. The flexing of muscle. The power play between the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile and Red Bull.

THE Malaysian Grand Prix. The flexing of muscle. The power play between the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile and Red Bull. The risk of Daniel Ricciardo being disqualified again — and again — before the appeal is heard next month against his elimination from the Australian Grand Prix. The message from the FIA to Red Bull this weekend: “Go on, do it again. We dare you.”

The FIA has pushed Red Bull into a corner by delaying Ricciardo’s hearing until April 14, the Monday before the fourth event on the Formula One calendar, the Chinese Grand Prix. The fine print: for the next two races, the Malaysian and Bahrain GPs, Red Bull manager Christian Horner must stick to his guns and continue using the team’s fuel readings or bow to the FIA’s request to accept the governing body’s sensor data. If Horner stays with Red Bull’s equipment, Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel risk further disqualifications. If Horner agrees to the FIA’s demands, it will be viewed as an admission that he erred at Albert Park.

The FIA versus Red Bull: a heavyweight staring match. Red Bull’s billionaire owner, Dietrich Mateschitz, is so incensed by Ricciardo’s disqualification that he’s threatening to walk away from the sport and take his mega-company with him. The 69-year-old Austrian mogul rarely joins the commentariat but he’s furious at suggestions that Red Bull descended to cheating in the fuel-flow transgression that stripped Ricciardo of his second-placing.

Asked under what circumstances he would reconsider Red Bull’s involvement in this esteemed sphere of single-seater auto racing, Mateschitz told Austrian newspaper Kurier: “The question is not so much whether it makes economic sense but the reasons would be to do with sportsmanship, political influence and so on. In these issues, there is a clear limit to what we can accept.”

The FIA takes a dim view of protests. Red Bull takes a dim view of being intimidated. Mateschitz’s franchise has won the past four constructors’ championships. Vettel has pocketed the past four drivers’ championships with Red Bull stickers plastered all over his ride. Red Bull has become such a major player that it’s hosting the resurrected Austrian Grand Prix at the old A1-Ring in July. Mateschitz’s message to the FIA: “We dare YOU.”

The FIA-Red Bull showdown will dominate pit lane and the tame sound of the souped-down V6 engines will attract another round of negative comment.