Doornbos to replace Klien
''Completely wrong,'' the Austrian, at Circuit de Catalunya, said on Friday of the story that first appeared on a Dutch website.
''I don't know why anybody would say that.''
His Red Bull press relations team, however, saw the funny side, listing a host of similarly fictitious replacements for Klien to add to the website gossip.
For Monaco, for example, Red Bull said Prince Albert would be driving alongside David Coulthard, while at Monza, Flavio Briatore was named as a candidate.
05/12/06 We are downgrading this rumor to 'false' today. Robert Doornbos' management has denied a rumor that, for 15 million EUR, the Dutch driver has bought Christian Klien's racing ride at the Red Bull Racing team.
A Dutch website reported on Friday morning that the price tag made the seat the 'most expensive ever in formula one history', but Red Bull's management also rejected the peculiar story.
''These messages are published by a website which is not FIA accredited nor contacted Robert, the team or us,'' a statement attributed to Doornbos' management said.
24-year-old Doornbos, who is currently Red Bull's 'Friday' test driver, is a bitter rival of countryman Christijan Albers, who – as it happens – writes an exclusive column for the website in question.
Doornbos' management added: ''We are very sorry that people are mislead by this information.''
05/11/06 F1Racing.net reports that Robert Doornbos will replace Christian Klien after the Spanish Grand Prix weekend. The Dutch Red Bull test driver secured the seat after his sponsor, Muermans, paid a total of 15 million Euros to secure the seat, making it the most expensive ride-buying seat ever in Formula 1 history.