Christian Horner was on Friday night still fighting for his future in Formula One but remained insistent he was going nowhere as the furore around his exoneration after a complaint about his behaviour from a female Red Bull employee continued to dominate the agenda at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Notably after qualifying however, his world champion driver, Max Verstappen, who had claimed pole for the opening race of the season, first declined to express his confidence in Horner and when pushed on the subject stated he had faith in Horner’s role from a “performance” perspective and suggested he was “probably a bit distracted”.
Only 24 hours after the Red Bull team principal had been cleared of the allegations against him following an independent investigation, an email was leaked to the media, F1, the FIA and teams of images purporting to show messages between Horner and the employee who made the complaint alleging inappropriate, controlling behaviour against him.
Its veracity has not been confirmed, nor has whether the messages were included in the investigation, but the impact on the sport has been immense.
When asked about it on Friday, Horner stuck to his guns. “I am not going to comment on anonymous speculation from unknown sources,” he said. When asked what would happen next he replied: “We go racing.”
Verstappen twice declined to express his confidence in Horner at a press conference on Wednesday. Asked again after qualifying he once more sidestepped the question. When pushed he responded: “When I look at how Christian operates within the team, he has been an incredible team boss, so absolutely, from the performance side of things, you can’t even question that.
“I speak to Christian a lot, and also throughout the weekend here, he’s fully committed to the team, he’s also here for the performance. Of course he’s probably a little bit distracted. But we just focus on the performance side of things.”