Christian Horner has warned Mercedes that his Red Bull team is ready for a court battle if necessary as he labelled the Silver Arrows' protests over the result at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix as "desperate".
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was left raging after Max Verstappen benefitted from a late safety car and came roaring past Lewis Hamilton on the final lap to snatch both the race win and the 2021 world title.
Without that safety car, which was sent out in response to a crash by Nicholas Latifi, Hamilton would almost certainly have won after dominating for much of the race.
It was the timing of the safety car's ending which incensed Mercedes, with race director Michael Masi fast-tracking the process so there could be one more lap of racing instead of the title battle being decided under safety car conditions.
However, Mercedes feel he broke F1's sporting regulations by ending the safety car period a lap earlier than he should have and immediately launched two protests – one against Verstappen for overtaking during yellow flags and one against the race result.
Both were rejected by the stewards and, while Mercedes accepted defeat on the first, the team has signalled its intention to appeal the second as Wolff and the rest of the hierarchy feels the race officials have unfairly taken victory away from them.
Asked about Mercedes' challenges, Red Bull team principal Horner couldn't resist taking a dig at his "desperate" rivals and vowed to fight for Verstappen's maiden F1 title in the court room if necessary.
"It obviously felt a little bit desperate but we didn't want it to finish in front of the stewards," he said.
"We never wanted to end up in front of the stewards, there was obviously a lot of debate before the race.
"As it turns out it was obviously very different after the race, we don't go racing with barristers and so on – it was a shame it ended up there but the stewards made the right call.
"We have talked about 'let them race', Niki Lauda was the guy who pushed hard for it and we've always talked about not finishing racing under safety cars – the race director in difficult circumstances made absolutely the right call and strategically we got it right.
"If they appeal, they appeal. We'll fight them in the appeal court and then in the legal court after that if they were to go that route."
