Red Bull F1 chief Christian Horner gives shock Mercedes team boss verdict

toto wolff, christian horner, mercedes, red bull, graphic — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 News & Gossip

Christian Horner gives shock Mercedes F1 team boss verdict

Christian Horner and Toto Wolff are arch rivals

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Wednesday 4 June 2025 08:13 Updated: 11:17

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has made a shock verdict about Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, as the pair's rivalry rumbles on.

Horner and his opposite number Wolff have been embroiled in a fierce rivalry since Mercedes' dominant era in the mid to late 2010s, but it especially came to a head during the almighty 2021 championship battle.

F1 HEADLINES: Hamilton issues conduct apology as Ferrari launch investigation

Article continues under video

Wolff's star driver Lewis Hamilton lost out to Horner's Max Verstappen on the last lap of the last race of the season in 2021, and since then Verstappen and Red Bull have gone on to dominate the sport.

Their exchanges have regularly been cheekily barbed one way or another in the past few seasons, with Wolff's 'yapping little terrier' remark about Horner the latest in a long line of petty arguments between the two.

However, now Horner has revealed that his Mercedes counterpart has done a 'great job' at the team, with Mercedes now sat above Red Bull in the constructors' championship, a rare sight since that 2021 season.

"I came into the sport in the days of Ron Dennis, Jean Todt, Flavio Briatore, Frank Williams and Bernie Ecclestone," Horner told Bild. "They were gentlemen.

"Back then, you tried to beat each other by any means necessary on the track and then shake hands again.

"Unfortunately, times have changed a bit, there's more whispering than talking straight, but there are still a lot of people today that I respect. Stefano Domenicali is one of them. Toto Wolff is also doing a great job at Mercedes."

Red Bull's 2025 struggles

Red Bull's dominance over the rest of the field began to wane in 2024, when Lando Norris was able to challenge Verstappen for the drivers' championship and McLaren pipped the Milton Keynes-based outfit to the constructors' title.

In 2025, their struggles have been even more evident, with the team currently sat down in fourth in the constructors' standings, and Verstappen's hopes of a fifth consecutive title beginning to fade.

Part of that has been down to the remarkable rise of McLaren under the stewardship of Andrea Stella and Zak Brown, who has seemingly become Horner's latest nemesis.

The Red Bull boss was caught on Netflix's Drive to Survive show calling the American a 'p****', during a tumultuous time when Horner was under investigation for alleged inappropriate behaviour against a female colleague, something he denied and was later cleared of by an internal Red Bull investigation.

Since then, the two teams have been involved in fierce championship battles, while Wolff's Mercedes have languished behind the two teams, perhaps acting as a cooling off period for the rivalry between Wolff and Horner.

Red Bull Max Verstappen Lewis Hamilton Ferrari Mercedes Christian Horner