Jos Verstappen says Christian Horner saga risks Red Bull ‘being torn apart’
Christian Horner’s leadership has been cast into fresh doubt after Max Verstappen’s father, Jos, claimed Red Bull is “in danger of being torn apart” if the under-fire team principal remains in his role.
A defiant Horner said on Saturday night that he is “absolutely confident” he will stay on as Red Bull boss for the remainder of the Formula One season after overseeing Verstappen lead a one-two finish from teammate Sergio Pérez at the opening round in Bahrain.
Horner’s job has faced intense scrutiny in recent weeks following allegations against him made by a female colleague. Horner has always denied the claims.
But speaking to the Daily Mail, Verstappen Sr added further fuel to the fire when he said: “There is tension here while [Horner] remains in position. The team is in danger of being torn apart. It can’t go on the way it is. It will explode. He is playing the victim, when he is the one causing the problems.”
Verstappen Sr has been accused in some quarters of attempting to oust Horner from his job. But the 51-year-old father of Red Bull’s three-time world champion continued: “That wouldn’t make sense. Why would I do that when Max is doing so well here?”
The controversy surrounding the Red Bull team principal, exonerated by an independent investigation into allegations of inappropriate behaviour made by a female employee but involved in a leaked email exchange containing messages said to be between him and the complainant, dominated the season’s opening week.
The Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff, was one of several principals to ask that the Horner investigation be transparent, an opinion understood to be shared by the sport’s governing body, the FIA and its owners F1 Management. Red Bull and Horner have stated they will not release any information from the inquiry, its findings or its conclusions for reasons of confidentiality.
Wolff has long been a champion of diversity and inclusivity within the sport and insisted it should be dealt with beyond the level of F1 politicking to protect the the sport’s reputation.
“The moment I start to continue to question how this has been handled, I am probably not doing any good to the whole issue because then it could be seen as just about a power fight within F1,” he said. “It is not in the teams’ hands, it is a so much bigger topic. I don’t want to diminish the situation by making it seem like the Mercedes or McLaren guy talks about the Red Bull guy.
“Let’s see how it goes in the next days and I would very much hope the governing body, the commercial rights holder, sets the compass right.”
Wolff said Red Bull and Verstappen Jr are in a different galaxy after the Dutchman crushed the opposition at the season-opener.
In a remarkable admission Wolff conceded that after just one race of a season set to run into mid December with a further 23 meetings, Verstappen was all but uncatchable.
The 26-year-old world champion won by 22 seconds from his own Red Bull teammate Sergio Pérez, who used identical machinery at the Sakhir circuit. It was a demonstration of complete mastery, Verstappen leading through every lap and completely unchallenged out front once heheld his pole-position lead into the first corner of the first lap. The closest of the rest of the field was Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz who came third, 25 seconds in arrears.
Verstappen enjoyed as much as a one second-a-lap pace advantage over the rest of the field for vast swathes of the race, leaving the opposition – who had expected the new Red Bull car to be strong – reeling nonetheless.
“Max is not in a different league but he’s in a different galaxy, the performance is extraordinary,” said Wolff.
Last season Red Bull won 21 of the 22 races and Verstappen won 19 of those. When asked if he believed the three-time defending champion could win every race, Wolff agreed that on this form, with the Red Bull proving to be so dominant, it was easily conceivable.
“Unfortunately, yes,” he said. “[We] just have to acknowledge his performance levels are really strong.”
Lewis Hamilton, in what will be his last season for Mercedes before he joins Ferrari in 2025, laboured from ninth on the grid to seventh, while his teammate George Russell went from third to fifth. The Mercedes car is an improvement on the previous two poorly-performing iterations and the drivers feel more confident with it but it has some way yet to go.
Wolff admitted that the team suffered with engine-cooling issues that forced them to turn the it down at cost of power, admitting that Mercedes have little hope of making up the gap to Red Bull.
“I believe our performance was masked by our problems,” he said. “Pérez is 20 seconds behind his team-mate, so we have hope. That is maybe the silver lining I can see, but it is very thin and far away and I almost can’t see that far.”