“You’ve got a problem. Change your ****ing car!” – this line from Christian Horner has earned legend status in F1. For those of you who are unaware of what this means, check out the fifth ‘Drive to Survive’ season that came out in February of last year. Focusing on the various personalities of the people who are attached to Formula 1, the hit Netflix docuseries features a raw look into what goes on in the paddocks during the race weekends. In the second episode of season 5, the viewers got to see a complete melt-down from Toto Wolff as he argued with Horner at one of the team principal meetings.

That episode focuses on Wolff trying to sway his fellow F1 team principals to reach a solution regarding the porpoising problem that plagued many of the racers in 2023. Mercedes faced the most difficulties regarding porpoising as the German manufacturers could not bypass the problem by making changes to their ’23 challenger. Meanwhile, Red Bull had already fixed the issue and their racecar looked to be in a top-notch condition. Hence, Horner was not at all bothered with any solution for porpoising. This led to an argument between Wolff and Horner where the Mercedes boss alleged that Red Bull had a “f****d” car. And this incident might be repeated in the seventh season of ‘Drive to Survive’ that will arrive next year.

The 2025 season of DTS will focus on the happenings of the current Formula 1 campaign where Red Bull has seen a steep fall from grace. While the team had started off on a strong note with back-to-back 1-2 finishes for Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, the situation has reversed now. With McLaren’s improvement in performance, Red Bull is now struggling to stick to its top position in the Championship standings. This has raised questions regarding how the Austrian team’s racecar has become a lot slower now as compared to the earlier races of this season. In response to this, some speculations have claimed that it is because Red Bull had to take out an illegal part from their engine that was giving them an aerodynamic advantage in the previous races.

But doubting this speculation, Richard Ready said on ‘Missed Apex F1’, “Don’t you think we’d have heard from Toto by now if there was really some evidence directly enough that Red Bull was doing something this cheeky? I mean, silence speaks volumes.” Thus, he claims that if RBR was indeed resorting to unfair means, Toto Wolff would have spoken up first. But then, Richard’s co-host Matt Trumpets commented, “There’s a very real possibility that that kind of conversation has happened but it’s happened with Netflix cameras present.”

Hence, there is a possibility that the DTS viewers will once again see Toto Wolff and Christian Horner lock horns over Red Bull’s engine claims. But how did these rumors start in the first place?

Ex-Ferrari boss called Red Bull’s engine performance into question on social media

Red Bull started off the season by building a considerable gap over all its rivals in the Championship table. But now, that difference is down to just 42 points as McLaren is now threatening to take its place. So, somewhere in the middle, the RB20 became a bit slower while the MCL-36 absolutely thrived. To give reasons behind the dip in the RB20’s performance, F1 pundit and ex-Ferrari man Peter Windsor fired a shocking claim on X.

Windsor confirmed his suspicions that Red Bull was using an illegal part in their racecar up until the Miami GP. He suggested that Christian Horner’s army was perhaps using cross-brake inertia valves on the rear brakes of its cars. Since such an addition is against FIA’s rules, the committee might have asked RBR to remove those parts and that is why the team is experiencing a weaker pace now. This is how a single tweet started the conspiracy campaign regarding Red Bull’s engine.

If Toto Wolff did find something was wrong with the Red Bull engine, he might have been the one to have complained to the FIA about it. Do you think the Mercedes boss had a hand in ensuring Horner’s RB20 experienced a performance decline? Let us know in the comments.