‘Refuelling won’t solve the problem’

Christian Horner has dismissed claims that bringing back refuelling will result in upping the excitement on a Sunday afternoon.

Earlier this month F1's Strategy Group announced that a return to refuelling during grands prix could be on the cards for 2017.

And the F1 fraternity is split over whether it is a welcome announcement or not.

While most drivers have backed the plan, Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff has already called into question the cost while Horner has doubts over whether it would actually spice of the grands prix.

"I tend not to agree with it. We got rid of refuelling for a reason, it didn't make the races interesting," the Red Bull team boss told Sky Sports F1.

"You've got a lot of new people in that Strategy Group who haven't been around all that long. If you cast your mind back to races where there was refuelling, they weren't that exciting – you just timed the pitstop, you either went shorter or longer [in the stint], and that dictated your strategy.

"So I think that's still open to debate."

The Brit, though, does feel it was a "fairly productive" meeting and went on to outline the Group's goal.

He added: "To make the cars harder to drive, to make them more exciting and to go five and six seconds quicker. To get some more downforce on the cars and differentiate them more than GP2 cars, that are only three or four seconds slower than us at the moment, and make life harder for the drivers.

"You'll see a bigger difference in driver input because the cars are pretty easy to drive at the moment. The power unit was discussed and they've agreed to increase the fuel flow a bit and increase the noise, although whether that fundamentally addressed the issues at the moment is open to debate. But certainly on the chassis side some positive discussions."