Mercedes AMG Formula One team principal Toto Wolff has opened up about his rivalry with former Red Bull team principal Christian Horner. Wolff revealed a strong reaction when asked about Horner, stating that “he has often behaved like an a**hole.”
The comments arrived several weeks after Horner’s ousting from Red Bull following the British Grand Prix. While the team has not stated the reason for parting ways with Horner, Red Bull’s dwindling performance and other controversies surrounding him are reportedly responsible for his departure.
Horner’s stint in the premier class has been a long one since his Red Bull appointment in 2005. The team experienced many ups and downs in the last 20 years, but the most dominant period arrived in 2022, marking the onset of F1’s ground effect era, slated to last until the end of the 2025 season.
However, Horner’s rivalry with Wolff peaked in 2021, when the championship battle between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton reached a dangerous level. Now that Horner is not present on the grid, Wolff was asked by Formula.hu about the strong rivalry. He said:
“What do I think? Well, he’s been acting like an asshole quite often in the last 12-15 years. He operates on completely different values, but even your worst enemy has a best friend. On the other hand, he was hugely successful at what he did.
“Now that he’s gone, at least for a while, a real personality has left the sport. He was controversial and divisive, but he was one of the main characters here. You could safely say he was as significant as a great driver.
“If I look at it purely from an F1 perspective, I don’t think there are many old-style team boss dinosaurs left here. Maybe just me. Maybe Fred (Vasseur) is a bit of a dinosaur too.”
Wolff then addressed the 2021 F1 season when the rivalry with Horner got intense, but stressed that he will now have to find a new rival given the 51-year-old Red Bull boss’s F1 exit. He said:
“If you look at it, it was always an interesting story. Those years, but especially 2021, it wasn’t just about Max and Lewis, it was about Christian and me. And sometimes it was really hard, it’s in every history book and it always will be. You know, he always said that I love to hate him. So who do I hate now? It seems like I have to find someone else…”
The post Toto Wolff Reveals Shocking Reaction to F1 Rivalry With Christian Horner appeared first on Newsweek.
