Christian Horner has said that Mercedes threw a key team member "under the bus" during last week's Austrian Grand Prix.
With Lewis Hamilton complaining about a bungled strategy, strategist James Vowles went onto the radio to issue a grovelling apology.
Red Bull boss Horner says that it was a "bizarre" mid-race incident.
"It seems a fairly bizarre thing for somebody to feel they need to do - to throw themselves under the bus to motivate a driver to go from fourth back into the lead," he told The Sun.
"Our philosophy is collective responsibility rather than individual. There has to be accountability, but that is dealt with in the right environment behind closed doors and not in a public forum."
Horner said that he thinks the main issue is Mercedes struggling to adapt to life now that Ferrari and Red Bull are fully competitive.
"It becomes very easy to become complacent and then it is an adjustment," he said.
The championship continues this weekend with the British Grand Prix.
