Christian Horner at Red Bull F1 END as decline hits new lows

Horner, imolaGP, social — Photo: © IMAGO

Red Bull

Horner at the END with Red Bull as decline hits new lows

Red Bull have finally been knocked off the top of the constructors' championship

Dan Ripley Global Editor

Professional F1 journalist and analyst

Tuesday 17 September 2024 18:56 Updated: 18:00

Red Bull has fallen. But perhaps the biggest surprise at seeing them toppled from the top of the championship is that it isn't actually a surprise. The downfall of Christian Horner's team has seemed inevitable for many weeks now.

That sounds like nonsense but at the start of the season, Red Bull were favourites for both world championships and even after the Spanish Grand Prix only three months ago they were in a supreme position. Max Verstappen led the drivers' title by 69 points from Lando Norris and Red Bull were still a comfortable 60 points ahead of Ferrari and a huge 93 points clear of McLaren.

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From that position, another double world championship seemed even more inevitable than it did before the season started. What's happened since Verstappen's last F1 win though in Catalunya has been quite remarkable. Is Christian Horner still the right man to lead Red Bull? Have your say in our GPFans poll at the bottom of this page.

Red Bull are on the F1 decline

Verstappen may be edging towards another world championship and is still the favourite, but it's now notable how the battle in that fight is if he can limit his reducing advantage to Norris over the final seven races, while McLaren have surged back in the constructors' title to now lead for the first time in 10 years. McLaren are now top dogs and Red Bull have hit a new low.

Granted, cracks were already appearing. Some of it Red Bull's own doing. The Horner scandal of him being investigated over inappropriate behaviour that Horner denied and was eventually cleared of may have now passed, but it was a negative force lingering over the team throughout the early season.

Max Verstappen and Red Bull are under heavy pressure from McLaren

Legendary designer Adrian Newey had decided to move on during this period and that already came off the back of many of the successful figures that made Red Bull such a dominant force in the first place moving on to fresh challenges at other teams. These sorts of changes are bound to bring disruption.

Other factors are less influenced by Red Bull, gains made by other teams for instance. Another being the diminishing returns of finding more performance from these set of regulations as others catch up.

Combine that with the reduced development time Red Bull also have to rivals in relation to their top place finish in the constructors' championship in recent seasons. In a sport obsessed with marginal gains, these factors add up.

But as already suggested, none of this is really ground-breaking information anymore. The last seven races have been the very clear indicators that Red Bull are no longer the fastest team.

Can Horner rebuild Red Bull again?

The question now needs to be moved on. Can Horner rebuild another winning machine for the third time - and for the first time without Newey and another trusted lieutenant in Jonathan Wheatley who is Audi bound for 2025?

Things to consider here, including if things can still get even worse. Part of the sticking plaster has been Verstappen, who has been driving the wheels off a fussy RB20 that while still a reasonably quick car looks notoriously difficult to setup into a sweet spot.

A three-time world champion isn't going to stick around though if he senses a better opportunity to win grands prix elsewhere. Verstappen himself hasn't exactly pledged his loyalty to the team with too much conviction in recent times either - especially given his father Jos's almost irreparable relationship with Horner given their recent feuds. Meanwhile, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff continues to bat his eyelids at the Verstappen camp.

So, the possibility of no Verstappen and that's another performance drop off to account for as Red Bull look to arrest a downward spiral of competitiveness.

Max Verstappen has helped hide Red Bull's decline

Reasons to be cheerful

It's not all bad news though. Baku's results show a DNF for the under pressure Sergio Perez and a rather miserable fifth place for Verstappen. Yet the upgrades brought to Baku seem promising. Perez was still in the hunt for a victory for a lot of the race before his crash with Carlos Sainz, and Verstappen's poor weekend could be considered a one off. More upgrades are on the way too and Red Bull are confident it will lead to performance gains - including Verstappen himself, who blamed his performance on a bad setup change.

He said: "I think we just paid the price with the change that we made into qualifying that made it just really difficult to drive. We tried to make it better, but we made it worse.

"So it is what it is. I think we learned a lot – the car did feel a bit better than what we had before."

Christian Horner will hope to build a new empire at Red Bull

Horner and Red Bull at crossroads

Red Bull's dominant days are probably over for now, but their time as a serious threat at the business end of the pack is by all means not. Consider it the fork in the road. The upgrades being steadily introduced from Baku and into the next few races could either be the boost they need to gain wins again, or it could be another bullet point to add to their timeline of decline over 2024.

You may argue that Red Bull need a fresh start for the new rules coming in for 2026 (with Ford hopping on board too) and that Horner may be untested without his bunch of seriously talented stars.

But he helped build the first empire that has come to an end. Given his love of football analogies it seems only fair, as well as sensible, that he be given the opportunity to build another in a similar fashion to Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United in the early 2000s. Heading towards the business end of the championship, every race is a 'cup final' now.

Written by

Dan Ripley - Global Editor

I've been a massive F1 fan since the mid 1990s and continue to study the history of the sport long before that. As an experienced motor sport reporter covering F1, MotoGP and the LeMans 24 Hour race, being part of GPFans has allowed me to work with a diverse team with all sorts of different backgrounds in watching the sport and given me a greater appreciation of F1.

View full biography

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