Christian Horner

Trouble you have is that its such a publicity machine that effectively with the cost cap, it costs nothing to promote your business to the billions around the world. I think it was reported in 2022 that competing in F1 cost Merc something like 

I should ask why the hate for Red Bull? If I was to work in F1 its looks like the most fun team to be involved with. Is it from the Vettel years, Mad Max, budget caps or AD21? 

 

Red Bull’s motorsport funding has been phenomenal but the F1 team seemed to be more about being Red Bull owned than the fact it was a garagiste set up bought by Red Bull. Horner’s position is such that Red Bull Racing without him would be seen as a new project, much like when Ron Dennis started making road cars and Project 4 was just a thing that happened once upon a time. To juxtapose that, the most successful and coveted seats in Moto2 are in the Red Bull KTM team run by Ake Ajo. However make no mistake: if Red Bull go it’s still Team Ajo but I don’t see RBR like that.

There is the rub for not liking RBR. The set up makes it look like the sponsor, which is in fact an owner, pulls the strings of the racing team whereas other teams need to commercially sell their product (success) for sponsorship revenue. When Philip Morris were throwing the red and white money around you never got the impression that John Hogan or his successor could push Ron or Ross / Jean about or shout the odds like Red Bull seem to be able to. As for the Max / Jos bollocks: Frank Williams would be spinning in his grave to hear of a driver calling the shots and Ron always said the two things that cost him the most sleep in 1988 were Senna’s contract and his baby daughter in equal measure.

So Red Bull are unloved by me for their set up, in the same way the Bundesliga hate Red Bull Leipzig: it’s not the way to get to the top.

This is broadly where I am (my hlghlighting above).  Add in Horner's triumphalism at the end of the 2021 season, Max's lack of care for his fellow competitors (he is similar to Schumacher in that regard, in my book), Jos's sheer cuntery, Marko's meddling, the blatant favouring of Vettel over Webber back in the Multi 21 era...

I respect how good Red Bull Racing are as a team and I agree that they did used to be 'the fun team' but those days are long, long gone in my opinion.  
Plus the perception of Horner's recent behaviour adds yet more toxicity.

If she was potentially involved in the leak then they have to suspend her whilst they investigate, that's perfectly normal and doesn't mean she's been sacked. The whole thing is turning into a right shit show.

A grave lack of judgement suspending her although it's hard to believe the leaked messages came from anywhere else. However they were personal messages. Difficult to see how this is going to end well for all the parties involved.

If she has been suspended then there must (or should be…) a current investigation and the view taken that it would be impacted by her remaining in the workplace.

That’s how it’s supposed to work anyway!

Even better news: that miserable fucker Marko might get suspended by RBR.

Indeed its like an ongoing soap opera - Helmut being the leak is hilarious! The Austrians and Jos on one side, the Thais (presumably not remotely bothered about equality or human rights) on the other.

It was international women's day on Friday, and I was sat here that evening doing some online training modules on human rights, the UN statements on them, and so on as mandatory training for work. It seemed beyond a joke that RB managed to suspend the female complainant the day before international women's day. I wonder if other people on her side in the organisation beyond Helmut are trying to make them look bad - surely Ford and other interested parties/sponsors will be hugely kicking off in the background.

For now I have my popcorm, and will watch with interest - the racing sadly looks about as interesting as last year, probably less so when you consider that Max was outdriven at this circuit last year and looked imperious this time around. LEt's hope for the sake of the sport, this explodes big time.

So what if Horner goes to Haas or Alpine? Or even Aston? Lays out a five year plan, calls Newey and starts the process over again when the new regs kick in?

Would be actually interesting as opposed to this red-top-headline shite.

Newey's gone, apparently

I would guess Aston as they’ve in the process of building the greatest wind tunnel created by a formula 1 team. I think Stroll is prepared to do whatever it takes and write out a cheque with a lot of zeros on it.

Love how the beeb are reporting it has more to do with Horner than the money.

Off to Ferrari is my guess, he's always wanted to work for them and also with Hamilton, makes you wonder with Hamilton moving to Ferrari next year (if Newey is going there) whether Hamilton knew all along about Newey going there too which swayed him to sign for them.

You can already see the changes with the team since Fred has gone in, could he be building a team in the Todt/Brawn/Schumacher vein!

Red Bull have confirmed he’s leaving, early next year.

He'd maybe become bored at Red Bull with all the success plus the likes of Horner, Verstappen and Markko don't come across as particularly pleasant people so perhaps he felt reluctant to stick around at the last contract renewal.

If he goes to Ferrari or Aston then he's doing the same as Schumacher did in 1996 when he left Benetton and went to a struggling team.