Red Bull F1 boss Christian Horner gets DESPERATE with McLaren pay claim

Horner, McLaren, socials — Photo: © IMAGO

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Horner gets DESPERATE with McLaren pay claim

Red Bull F1 boss Christian Horner stretches to desperate measures in championship scrap

Kerry Violet F1 News Editor

F1 editor and journalist covering motorsport since 2024.

Wednesday 18 September 2024 12:57 Updated: 20:36

Christian Horner has revealed the despairing lengths he will go to in order to discredit championship rivals McLaren.

The Red Bull Formula 1 team principal had a weekend to forget last time out at Baku as Andrea Stella's papaya outfit stormed to the top of the constructors' standings, knocking Red Bull off their perch.

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McLaren lead the championship by just 20 points. Yet, the gap is clearly wide enough to strike fear into the heart of Horner, with the 50-year-old making a last-ditch attempt to turn the McLaren garage against each other once again following the recent 'papaya rules' debacle.

Following Oscar Piastri's controversial maiden win in Hungary earlier this season, McLaren were left in the uncomfortable position of having to confirm who their top driver was and if it were to be Lando Norris, whether they could count on Piastri to back his team-mate throughout his championship campaign against the withering Red Bull of Max Verstappen.

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Horner's 2024 season has gone from bad to worse thanks to an ongoing mass exodus of staff, most notably the exit of Adrian Newey, who he appears to have loosened his grip on despite the design guru's contract running with the team until 2025.

In his personal life, Horner has also faced unrest this year after he was accused of 'inappropriate behaviour' by a Red Bull employee, for which he was cleared of any wrongdoing via an internal investigation.

To top it all off, the reigning champions now head into the Singapore Grand Prix weekend with just seven races remaining for them to take back the constructors' championship, all the while batting away rumours of their star driver being potentially poached and their supporting driver being axed as early as next week.

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In the aftermath of a shocking Azerbaijan Grand Prix for Red Bull, Sky Sports have revealed that Horner understands Norris to be McLaren's number one driver purely because he is paid more.

In what comes across as a desperate attempt to rile McLaren up, Horner revealed: "Lando Norris, they're paying five times what they pay Oscar, so I would assume he would be their No 1 driver, or their biggest asset,"

"Therefore, the confusion comes when you're not up front from the beginning of what your plans are."

Neither of Horner's own drivers have been on ideal form for the latter half of this season - Verstappen hasn't won a race since the Spanish GP back in June and Perez was even set to finish way ahead of his 'No.1 driver' team-mate last weekend before a high-speed crash delivered an abrupt end to his race.

Following Piastri's second career win last weekend, perhaps Horner has now had the sobering realisation that it could be the Aussie driver who presents the biggest threat to Red Bull. Whilst the 23-year-old isn't a direct contender for the drivers' championship with just 222 points to Verstappen's 313, every point for McLaren strengthens the gap to Red Bull, meaning Horner may feel the only way to get ahead of the issue is by driving a wedge between the two McLaren drivers.

Christian Horner will be hoping Lando Norris gets caught up in McLaren team order issues once again

"I think the other one is causing them headaches because he [Piastri] is winning races and he's doing a very good job," continued Horner.

"For sure, they took Oscar with the expectation, as Mercedes did with probably George [Russell] and Ferrari did with Carlos [Sainz], that you've got a prime asset and a support asset."

"When the second driver starts outperforming the first driver, that's when you tend to have a headache."

Unfortunately for Horner, he isn't kidding anyone. The headache for him seems to be the battle he and his drivers now face heading into the final races of the season, where only a team as disjointed as Red Bull could mess up the winning the constructor's championship.

Written by

Kerry Violet - F1 News Editor

Having graduated from the University of Sheffield with a 2:1 in Journalism in 2022, Kerry continued her pursuit of finding a full-time position in motorsport through work with the F1 Arcade in London, where she got to meet true fans of the sport and make a live grand prix watch party memorable for them. It was here she realised her background in journalism and love of motorsport could be combined, going on to volunteer with the female-led platform Empoword Journalism. Having completed stints as a screen editor and sports editor, Kerry landed her first F1-specific editorial role with GPFans and has thoroughly enjoyed continuing to work more closely with the sport ever since. The access GPFans offers Kerry has allowed her to interview big names such as Naomi Schiff and David Coulthard and given her experiences she could only have dreamt of as a young F1 fan which she hopes to build on.

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Red Bull Max Verstappen McLaren Christian Horner Baku