Christian Horner Q&A: The Red Bull boss defends Sebastian Vettel from the boo boys

In the aftermath of Sebastian Vettel's latest star performance under the lights in Singapore, Red Bull's Team Principal Christian Horner sat down with the written media to discuss the post-race talking points...

Q: Do you think it's particularly unfair as well because he's a good ambassador and he's got a good sense of humour?
CH: "He's a great kid. He's got a great sense of humour. He's got a big heart at the end of the day and of course he's ambitious, he's a competitor and he will push and he enjoys winning. It's a shame [Vettel is booed] and I hope it will change in the forthcoming races." Q: He's certainly become a pantomime villain though hasn't he Christian? Alonso's had it at times, Schumacher's had it at times...
CH: "We've heard it with Fernando. I can remember when I first came into the sport Fernando in the years that he was winning continually with Renault was booed everywhere he went. When he raced against Lewis Hamilton at McLaren he was hugely unpopular, now he's the most popular driver in the pitlane. "Everybody loves and underdog and of course he's got that and is working that extremely well. But Sebastian I think is delivering at a level that is a pleasure to see and I think that this won't affect him. But for sure, when you're standing up there it's not a pleasant experience to hear boos for when you have put in a dominant performance." Q: That's probably the most dominant we've seen you this year, have you put more performance on the car or is there something about this place?
CH: "Well at one point I thought he'd found a short-cut because his pace advantage was so significant! Of course you've got the benefit of running in clear air but we saw on Friday that the car was really quick here and the only time that we really unleashed him was in that window after the Safety Car and said 'okay, we need to build a gap'. I don't think any of us expected that he'd be able to hit 30 seconds in 15 laps, or whatever it was that he managed to turn around." Q: Is that from the car though?
CH: "I think that's a combination of him having confidence in the car and, for sure, we've made progress with the car. Adrian [Newey] and his team are doing an incredible job balancing between the current development and the 2014 challenges. High-downforce circuits hadn't been our strong point earlier in the year and I think it's testimony to the technical team and the hours that are going in that we've come to a maximum-downforce track and we've been right on the pace." Q: What about the bad luck for Mark Webber?
CH: "It was a bittersweet victory today because on the one hand it was such a dominant result by Seb and on the other to get within two miles of the finish line with Mark only to have an engine failure. We could see we were at risk [of that] from about 12 laps out. We were losing water pressure, and then of course the water effectively ran out with about a lap and a half to go, and then you're in the lap of the gods. "We decided to keep pushing to try and get to the finish line and he nearly made it. But that was harsh for him to race for two hours and have that failure on the last lap." Q: Where would he have ended up if this didn't occur?
CH: "I think he would have caught Kimi [Raikkonen]. I'm not sure he would have passed Kimi, but he would have given him a hard time. For sure [Webber would have finished] fourth." Q: You've not only got a comfortable lead in the championship, you've also got a clear performance advantage as well. Surely you can't be too worried about