Christian Horner Opens Up on How Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber’s “Unhealthy” and “Extremely Intense” Rivalry Divided Red Bull

Any sport is incomplete without a fierce rivalry on the ground. Formula 1 is no exception. There are a number of rivalries that remained in the limelight for years. One of them comes from the Red Bull camp. In a recent interview, Christian Horner revealed how the two ex-Red Bull drivers created an unwanted team atmosphere.

Red Bull is having a dream run for the past two years. Max Verstappen has already won this year’s championship. Both the Red Bull drivers have a great bond on and off the track. Nowadays, we don’t get to see any rivalries between the Red Bull teammates, but there were days in the Milton Keynes camp when the rivalry used to be very intense.

Christian Horner, in an interview with Bloomberg, told how the rivalry between Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber reached a stage where the team environment became unhealthy. The team principal revealed, “The relationship between Webber and Vettel started to sour after the pair collided at the 2010 Turkish Grand Prix.”

The rivalry was at its pinnacle when, back in 2013, Vettel decided to ignore the team’s radio message, giving directions to car number two (Webber) to finish ahead of car number one (Vettel). Even after winning 4 consecutive drivers titles, the team domain wasn’t pleasant.

Horner said, “I think the Webber/ Vettel rivalry was extremely intense. You had one driver that was nearing the end of his career and another driver that was obviously at the peak of his career and indeed in the ascendency at the time.”

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Being the team principal, Horner has observed both Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen’s growth. Both the driver’s rookie seasons came with Red Bull’s sister side, Toro Rosso (now AlphaTauri). Now the Briton has revealed, who between both the champion drivers he rates higher.

Christian Horner believes Max Verstappen is the Greatest Red bull Driver Ever

Christian Horner has hailed the Dutchman as the greatest Red Bull driver ever. Now, this statement might have hurt the four-time world champion, Sebastian Vettel. The German has won 38 Grand Prix in his stint of 6 years for the Bulls. Whereas the two-time World Champion Max Verstappen has managed to win 32 Grand Prix during his 7 years time with Red bull.

Despite the stats favoring Vettel, the Brit rates the Dutchman higher than the retiring German. He told Times, “I have no doubt he [Max Verstappen] is the best we have seen on one of our cars, in terms of outright raw ability and commitment.”

He further added, putting a full stop to the comparison, “He’s the best driver we’ve seen. Sebastian was also incredibly good, but we gave him a better car.”

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Currently, the Red Bull is at the top of the constructor’s list. They will hope to win the constructor’s championship at the upcoming US Grand Prix.