Horner clarifies 'female fan' comments after social media backlash

Christian Horner has clarified comments that "young girls" are now following F1 because of the "great looking" drivers after receiving criticism on social media.

The Red Bull team principal made the ill-judged comments while discussing the impact of Netflix series Drive to Survive with talkSPORT host Laura Woods.

He explained: "F1 is bringing in a young generation. It’s bringing in a lot of young girls because of all these great-looking young drivers."

The comments were immediately called out by Woods with Horner going on to explain that F1 "absolutely" needs more women in driving, engineering and management roles.

Despite this, Horner's initial words created a backlash on social media and he addressed this when speaking at F1 testing on Wednesday.

“I think it has obviously been utilised on Twitter quite a bit but I think that the intention of it was that we have got a great crop of young drivers, they are exciting race drivers and it is fantastic that we’ve got a young audience, both female and male, coming into the sport," explained Horner.

“Having an insight into those personalities is something that…a show like Netflix has brought out those characters so you get to know those personalities and it’s fantastic that we are seeing wherever we go in the world, tremendous interest.

“My own daughter that is 15 had very little interest in Formula 1 before a show like Netflix came along because you couldn’t relate to the characters, you couldn’t relate to the drivers and I think whether you’re female or whether male, it’s great that we’re welcoming such new audiences throughout the globe.”

Related

More F1 news

Latest F1 news

Racing superstar wins two races at Nurburgring and Spa at the SAME TIME - here's how he did it

• Yesterday 22:55

'George Russell on Max Verstappen hate watch?' Fans pile in on F1 star's 'shady' Nurburgring 24 hour post

• Yesterday 21:56

F1 legend gives update to fans after back surgery

• Yesterday 21:15

Mercedes boss delighted with Max Verstappen decision to race for them

• Yesterday 20:26

Kimi Antonelli will 'definitely' move to Ferrari claims F1 star's friend

• Yesterday 19:45

New F1 video game confirmed by Lewis Hamilton, but there's one thing wrong with it

• Yesterday 18:55