Oracle Red Bull Racing Team Principal Christian Horner, left, talks with Jos Verstappen on the Bahrain Grand Prix. (Getty Images)
Christian Horner said midway through his Red Bull internal investigation that it was ” business as normal ” for the Formula 1 team and star of “Drive to Survive,” and he wasn’t kidding.
Horner in a single race weekend alone gave Netflix a complete season of fabric in what might be the performance of his lifetime. Cleared by Red Bull last week on allegations of misconduct levied against him by a team worker, he moved on to the season-opening race in Bahrain.
Horner has denied wrongdoing from the beginning, but just when he thought the matter was closed, a trove of alleged evidence against him was sent from a generic email address to greater than 100 F1 industry members throughout the middle of the second practice for the opening race. The authenticity of the files has not been verified by The Associated Press.
He didn’t flinch, walking hand in hand along with his wife, former pop star Geri Halliwell, through the paddock. The 2 even shared a kiss before the beginning of Saturday’s race.
Then Red Bull Racing does what it does best: totally dominated the sector.
Horner celebrated below the rostrum with Red Bull co-owner Chalerm Yoovidhya. On Instagram, he posted a five-picture carousel that included photos showing Horner next to Yoovidhya, hugging automotive designer Adrian Newey and one other team member, a hug with winner Max Verstappen and a picture of him and wife “Ginger Spice.”
“What a weekend. The right begin to the season,” Horner wrote. “To our stakeholders, our illustrious partners and everybody here in Bahrain, thanks in your unending support and commitment to get us off to the most effective possible start.”
Is that, like, it?
Apparently not if Verstappen’s father gets his way.
The soap opera since Feb. 5 has been Red Bull’s investigation against Horner and it has been tabloid-level salacious. Red Bull has refused to even discuss what was being looked into, and it won’t reveal the interior report that exonerated Horner despite demands for transparency from future engine partner Ford, which twice in writing has pushed the energy drink maker for answers.
Formula One Management, series owner Liberty Media Co. and governing body FIA have said next to nothing despite calls from rival team principals Toto Wolff of Mercedes and Zak Brown of McLaren for transparency.
Oracle and Visa, the title sponsors of Red Bull’s two F1 teams, haven’t said a word publicly all the time. A Ford executive on the NASCAR race in Las Vegas refused to say if the corporate was satisfied with Red Bull’s transparency, which to this point has consisted of a press release that principally said there was nothing to see here in any respect.
“Red Bull is confident that the investigation has been fair, rigorous and impartial,” wrote Red Bull, which noted the accuser can appeal. “The investigation report is confidential and accommodates the private information of the parties and third parties who assisted within the investigation, and due to this fact we won’t be commenting further out of respect for all concerned. Red Bull will proceed striving to satisfy the best workplace standards.”
And that is all Red Bull believes there’s to it, at the same time as FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem told the Financial Times the controversy surrounding Horner is “damaging the game. “
Well, Jos Verstappen has finally publicly stepped in.
They do not call Max’s dad and Michael Schumacher’s onetime teammate “Jos the Boss” for nothing — the person infamously once threw his then-young son out of the automotive to walk several miles home following an unsatisfactory on-track performance. There’s been open gossip that Jos Verstappen is involved within the push to rid Red Bull Racing of Horner, and hours after the fifty fifth win of his son’s profession, he told The Every day Mail the team “will explode” if Horner will not be removed.
“There’s tension here while he stays in position,” Mail Sport quoted Jos Verstappen as saying. ”The team is in peril of being torn apart. It could’t go on the way in which it’s. It should explode. He’s playing the victim, when he’s the one causing the issues.”
The meat between Horner and Verstappen’s father is anybody’s guess.
So now what?
Red Bull on Sunday denied any strife throughout the team, saying in a press release: “There are not any issues here. The team are united and we’re focused on racing.”
And so it’s on to the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix next weekend, and before Jos Verstappen’s outburst, attention already had shifted to rivals dropping out toward Red Bull after only one race in a record-long 24-race F1 season.
This Horner mess might actually go away.
The FIA is not investigating him, citing an absence of any complaints filed to the governing body against Horner’s conduct. F1 and Liberty seem hands off, as has Red Bull’s top American-based sponsors excluding Ford. Most seem resigned that Red Bull’s parent company refuses to release its internal report.
It’s at this stage only a human resources issue for Red Bull, an organization owned 49% out of Austria and 51% by the Yoovidhya family. Horner put a show in Bahrain by mingling with the son of the Thai pharmacist and Red Bull’s recipe-making co-founder; it has been speculated that Yoovidhya supports the longest-serving team principal in F1 as Austria management is in search of ways to oust Horner.
Horner ensured he and Halliwell placed on a united front for the paparazzi; his wife has been a fixture at most F1 races since their 2015 marriage. The tabloids have said the alleged leak of evidence against Horner occurred as she was already on her technique to Bahrain.
She seemed unbothered on the track, and so has Horner, who unflinchingly has maintained his role as boss the last messy month. It is obvious — if by nothing else, Jos Verstappen’s post-race quotes — that somebody wants Horner gone.
Horner doesn’t care.
“I’m not going to comment on what motives whatever person can have for doing this. My focus is on this team, my family, my wife and going racing,” Horner said in Bahrain. “I actually have the support of an incredible family, an incredible wife and an incredible team and everybody inside that team. And my focus is on going racing, winning races and doing the most effective I can.”
He noted again he’d been exonerated by his bosses, and it seems headed toward a quiet thud of all this noise surrounding Horner. The team won 21 of twenty-two races last yr, Verstappen has three consecutive driver championships and Red Bull went 1-2 to open 2024.
“Higher to do your talking on the track,” Horner surmised.
We’ll see if this highlight on Horner really goes away, and if Verstappen can move the eye toward competition through weekly routs in outcomes already predicted. Red Bull’s image seems bruised, at minimum, but at Horner’s success rate, perhaps that does not matter.
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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
This Article First Appeared At www.autoblog.com
