Author Archives: PressBox

Christian Horner reflected on Red Bull’s first Formula 1 victory with its own power unit, calling the Malaysian win for the Red Bull Ford Powertrains engine, taken by Max Verstappen, an incredible achievement. Verstappen won again in Singapore a week later. Horner said Red Bull shareholders called him after the Malaysia victory, a gesture he described as meaningful compared with the phone call that led to his dismissal as Red Bull team principal in July 2025. He spoke at the Autosport Business Exchange in New York.

Horner said he was proud of the work that went into Red Bull Powertrains after Honda announced its withdrawal in 2020. He said the engine project was built from scratch and that Red Bull created Powertrains with a start-up mindset to attract and empower talent.

He said he was proud to have helped guide Red Bull’s transition from an engine customer to a power unit manufacturer. Horner also said Red Bull’s structure changed after Dietrich Mateschitz’s death in 2022, with more control shifting back to head office and the team’s autonomy diminishing.

Toto Wolff is already vetting possible successors as he prepares for the end of his Mercedes contract in 2026, and he has suggested the team’s top job could eventually be split between two or three people. Wolff said Mercedes will need a solid management structure for the transition and that any future executive or non-executive chairmanship would need to be carefully separated from day-to-day operations.

Wolff said the handover must be managed carefully so Mercedes does not lose its competitive edge. He did not name any of the people he is considering as successors, but Bradley Lord has been named deputy team principal for 2026.

Wolff said a clean break from Mercedes is unlikely because he and his family still own a 33% stake in the team. Wolff joined Mercedes from Williams in 2013 and has overseen eight Constructors’ Championships and seven Drivers’ Championships during his tenure.

Ferrari unveiled a one-off livery for Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton’s SF-26 cars for the United States Grand Prix in Austin, with the design created alongside title partner HP. The special look uses sketches, technical drawings and blueprint-style graphics, and Ferrari said it is meant to highlight the creativity, engineering work and development process behind the car, from idea to reality. Silvia Cavallaro, the team’s head of color and trim, said the livery was meant to show the journey from idea to reality and the craftsmanship behind Ferrari’s performance, and Ferrari said the design took extensive testing to apply to the car’s complex surfaces.

Ferrari and HP will showcase the design throughout the Austin weekend as the team looks to build on recent progress without setting a specific finishing target. Team principal Fred Vasseur said Ferrari is coming off two encouraging races in Asia, where it scored solid points, but warned that Circuit of the Americas will be a tougher test because of its varied corners and demanding layout.

Ferrari was one of several teams to unveil special Austin liveries, with Mercedes and Aston Martin also revealing one-off designs for the race weekend. Mercedes added blue sections to its W17 to highlight its MANUFAKTUR personalization service, and Aston Martin’s AMR26 marks five years of its partnership with Cognizant, which began when the team returned to Formula 1 in 2021. With Ferrari, Mercedes and Aston Martin joining Haas and Cadillac, five of the 11 teams had revealed special liveries, while Red Bull kept its car unchanged and instead planned Ford Raptor-inspired race suits and related garage branding for Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar.

Christian Horner’s memoir detailed how close Lewis Hamilton once came to joining Red Bull, saying Hamilton’s father, Anthony Hamilton, first contacted him in 2012 about a possible move from McLaren. Horner said the talks led to a secret meeting at Adrian Newey’s house near Ascot, where Hamilton asked what it would take to join Red Bull, but the deal collapsed because of the cost. Red Bull considered pairing Hamilton with Sebastian Vettel, but Horner said Helmut Marko was unimpressed and senior figures, including Dietrich Mateschitz, were not keen on replacing Mark Webber with Hamilton alongside Vettel.

Horner said Hamilton had grown frustrated at McLaren before moving to Mercedes, and that a gearbox failure in Singapore in September 2012 helped push him toward leaving. He also said Mercedes’ poor form at the time made the move appealing. Horner later told Mercedes adviser Niki Lauda to sign Hamilton, and Lauda persuaded him to join Mercedes for 2013. Hamilton went on to win six world titles and 84 races with the team.

The memoir also said Lauda approached Horner in 2012 about leaving Red Bull to become Mercedes team principal before Toto Wolff joined the team. Horner said he turned down the approach out of loyalty to Red Bull and Mateschitz, though he came close to accepting it. Mercedes brought in Wolff in January 2013, and Horner later described their clashes as “a sport within a sport.” Horner also called Max Verstappen the greatest talent he has seen and said it would be fascinating if Kimi Antonelli one day went head to head with Verstappen.