After weeks of turmoil at Red Bull Racing, the team’s beleaguered principal, Christian Horner, had issued a plea at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, more in hope than realism, that it was time to draw a line under the controversy that had surrounded him and his team.
However, what followed in Formula One’s first week off since the new season began dashed whatever faint hopes he must have nurtured and the scrutiny is set to be renewed this weekend at Australian Grand Prix, where the temporary moratorium on the infighting at Red Bull will once more come under intense pressure.
Horner has endured the most turbulent and difficult two months of his career since it was made public in early February that he was being investigated for alleged inappropriate behaviour after a complaint made by a female employee of the team. The grievance was dismissed on 28 February just before the season-opening Bahrain GP.
Horner always denied any wrongdoing but there was to be no respite. A day later an email was leaked to the FIA, F1, the teams and the media that purported to contain messages between Horner and the complainant and since then the storm has only grown.
By the race weekend in Saudi Arabia, what was perceived to have been part of a power struggle at Red Bull took full flight. The world champion Max Verstappen’s father, Jos, was openly calling for Horner to step down, the team’s motorsport director, Helmut Marko, was under threat of suspension, prompting Verstappen to threaten to leave. To which Horner responded by calling his bluff in stating that no single person is bigger than the team.
This was an unprecedented level of contortion and infighting for an F1 team, occurring very much in public, an anathema for organisations so dedicated to exercising iron control over information and image.
As the floodlights went out in Jeddah, the official line from Red Bull was one of team unity and that ruffled feathers had been smoothed and that every implement capable of making a mark was being employed to emphatically draw as many lines as possible.