Christian Horner lands big F1 win over Wolff with emphatic declaration

Toto Wolff and Christian Horner — Photo: © LAT Images

GPFans F1 Awards

Horner lands big F1 win over Wolff with emphatic declaration

Team bosses fighting it out again

Dan Ripley Global Editor

Professional F1 journalist and analyst

Saturday 6 January 2024 12:57

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It's been a while since we saw Christian Horner and Toto Wolff going toe-to-toe when it comes to competing at the top in Formula 1.

Given Red Bull's dominance over the last two seasons, the epic duels between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton with their team bosses supporting them in their corners seem like a long time ago now.

Yet while Mercedes will now be focused on trying to get back to the very front of the grid in 2024, in the meantime they will have to take an early loss at the start of the year as a typical Red Bull domination resumed in our annual GPFans awards, as voted for by readers.

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When it came to voting for the best team principal of the 2023 season, there were no doubts over the winner, with Horner taking well over half of the vote having led Red Bull to both the drivers' and constructors' championships and winning all but one of the 22 races.

Christian Horner led the Red Bull team to 21 Formula 1 victories in 22 races

Toto Wolff's Mercedes snatched second place in the constructors' championship at the final race of the year

Andrea Stella (left) helped turn around McLaren's fortunes to much acclaim from Zak Brown (right)

Distant second again for Mercedes

In fairness to Wolff there was little he could do to respond to that, but he does still carry credit with many supporters who voted to give him second place with 22 per cent of cast votes having guided Mercedes to a distant runners-up finish.

Andrea Stella's role in helping McLaren perform a miraculous mid-season turnaround to end the campaign as arguably the chief challengers to Red Bull ensured he took 10 per cent of the votes.

Williams ended 2022 bottom of the pile but after appointing James Vowles as team principal now appear to be on an upward trajectory after a seventh place finish and the former Mercedes strategist earned five per cent of votes.

Despite being in the running for second place in the championship right up until the final lap in Abu Dhabi, readers were less keen on Frederic Vasseur's first season at Ferrari after falling even further behind than in 2022 to challenge Red Bull.

Readers were also less keen to vote for Mike Krack on two per cent, despite Aston Martin taking eight podiums via Fernando Alonso in a big leap up in performance compared to 2022.