Team principals of Mercedes and Red Bull Racing, Toto Wolff and Christian Horner have been provoking each other all season among the championship battle and recently appeared together with another dialogues battle in a scheduled press conference between Friday practice sessions at Losail.

Ahead of Qatar Grand Prix weekend, Wolff made a review against Red Bull’s ace Max Verstappen over a defensive drive during last weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix. Following FIA rejected the Mercedes claim and Horner start another conflict and discussed a possible dispute over Mercedes’ driver Lewis Hamilton’s rear wing on his F1 car.

Gamesmanship? Respect? Win at all cost?

“I think relationship and respect are two different things,” Horner said in Qatar on Friday. “Of course, there is respect for everything that Mercedes have done and everything that Lewis Hamilton has done, but I don’t need to go to dinner with Toto. I don’t need to kiss his ass, or anything like that.

“There are a few other team principals that might, but from my perspective it’s a competition and I think it’s great that we’re in this position, that we’re fighting. We’re fighting for the World Championship, we’re fighting for the Constructors’ World Championship and it’s the first time in seven year they have been challenged, so that intensifies it and I think the sport is a big winner out of this and I just hope that we have a hard and fair fight between now and the end of the season.”

Horner added that the two fighters are not exactly dinner buddies.

“There is no relationship,” Horner said. “Look, we are going to push to the maximum. We worked hard to get into this position. It’s the first time they have been challenged. It’s interesting to see how people react when they are under pressure, when they are challenged.

“It’s by far the most intense, political title fight we’ve been involved in in our time in the sport. Does our car comply with the rules? Absolutely. Do we have concerns about the gains in straight line speed we have seen (in Mercedes) since Budapest, but which have been exponential in the last couple of races? Absolutely. Do we expect the FIA, as the scrutineer and the policeman of the sport, to ensure that all the cars are compliant?

“The rules are a complex set of regulations so you know we rely very, very heavily on the FIA to ensure that it’s absolutely scrupulously fair, because what we absolutely want going into these last three races is a fair fight. Whoever comes out at the end of this on top, it shouldn’t be in the stewards room or in a court of appeal, it needs to be done on track. We just want to ensure that going into these last three races that these cars are being scrupulously policed and are in full compliance, because there is too much at stake. You’ve got two teams and two drivers that are fighting for the biggest prize in sport and the stakes are incredibly high and you want to make sure the playing field is level.”

Mercedes are 11 points clear of Red Bull in the constructors’ championship but Red Bull’s Max Verstappen is 14 ahead of Hamilton.

“I think indeed it’s a danger,” Wolff said. “Nobody wants to have feeds from social media that’s coming in and then you suddenly have new evidence, rightly or wrongly, so we need to clean that up. Hopefully in the regulations, with the consent of everybody that, first of all, the stewards need to have access to all relevant channels.”

Mercedes complained the Brazilian race long after the race, after new in-cockpit video surfaced.

“I think in that case the stewards didn’t have access to the onboard, which is an important tool to judge.” Wolff said. “I think we’ve had instances in the past, like Red Bull on the Red Bull Ring where Lewis didn’t see a yellow flag but on the video you could see he did—or he could have seen it, and it was penalized. And I think in that case, those informations weren’t available to the stewards, and that’s why it’s relevant and we should make sure they have access quickly to all these relevant channels.

But I agree: we don’t want to drag it for a week or two. That’s not the right thing.”

At least on that front, the two rivals concur.

“I think that’s the danger for the FIA with this,” Horner said. “That if they do go down this route than every single incident from now on will be questioned. They’ll be evidence from iPhones or spectators’ phones. There’ll always be something that can be deemed as new or relevant or significant and I think that the stewards made their call. It wasn’t even referred to on their listing after the event. It was a non-issue. It was two drivers racing hard, both in truth went in deep, went in late. Both went off the circuit and we saw many incidents at Turn 4 throughout that weekend in both the race and on Saturday. Then, of course, if you wind it back, you know you get incidents like Istanbul, you get to incidents like at Monza. Where do you draw that line? So, yeah, the competitors are going to push every angle that they can but I really don’t see the relevance of it and I think it does set a dangerous precedent if this incidence, on this occasion is reopened.”

Just don’t hold that dinner table.

“As far as the punches between the teams, there are many great people working in Red Bull and obviously many great people working in Mercedes and it’s a hell of a fight,” Wolff said. “There is a respect for the capability that Red Bull has, definitely. And it’s clear that this is tough. It’s the World Championship of the highest category in motor racing and what started as Olympic boxing went to pro boxing and is now MMA, but that’s OK. We are in the ring there trying to do the best job possible, elbows are allowed now because the rules say so and gloves are off and nothing else is to be expected.”