“Always Seen Red Bull as a Threat”: Horner Breaks Down Infamous Rivalry With Toto Wolff

Red Bull boss Christian Horner and Mercedes boss Toto Wolff share a strange relationship. While they sometimes praise each other’s work in their respective teams, they certainly don’t hold back when taking digs at each other. In a recent interview, Horner made some serious remarks about Toto and Mercedes that won’t go down well with them.

Christian Horner recently appeared on Formula One’s Beyond The Grid podcast. He shared how his relationship with Toto is, and how much of it is for the cameras. He shared some off-track incidents that led to animosity between the two.

Christian Horner on his rivalry with Toto Wolff

On the podcast, Horner was asked about how much of his friction with Toto is real, and how much of it is for the cameras. Reflecting on the previous season, Horner said that there was a lot going on-track and off-track when Red Bull were establishing powertrains.

“Toto, I think has always seen Red Bull as a threat because it’s a team he has not ever managed to have a control or an input into and so we’ve always been a bit of a maverick”, he said. “So it was very intense because there was a lot going on off-track”.

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The Red Bull boss went on to narrate some off-track incidents that raised some eyebrows.

Horner alleges Mercedes lobbied with FIA against Red Bull

Horner continued by narrating the time when there was vast recruitment going of key people from Mercedes to Red Bull for powertrains. He said that there was “An awful lot of lobbying with the FIA on different car components”. He said that even drivers’ influence was used for Red Bull’s rear wings in Barcelona. All this while, he alleged that front wings were allowed to flex with no issue. 

He continued, “It felt like, you know, we were being played a bit”. He said that even media was being used to create a narrative against Red Bull. Christian went on to say that he felt the whole thing was unfair, especially to Max. 

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This is not the first incident in recent times when the Red Bull boss has taken a shot at Toto. He had recently said, albeit jokingly, that he would like to dole out the same treatment to Wolff that he had himself faced for years. If not anything, this back and forth between the two giants of the F1 world makes for entertainment for the fans.