The head of Red Bull, Christian Hornersays he is not concerned about the fact that some of his employees are negotiating with other teams Formula 1. He also took the opportunity to hit Toto Wolfffrom the Mercedes to say that it is the Austrian who should be worried about the loss of personnel, since the team itself Milton Keynes ‘stole’ 220 people from the rival’s engine division.
Over the weekend in Miami, information came to light that several key names at Red Bull, including longtime sporting director Jonathan Wheatleyare being courted by rivals.
McLaren CEO Zak Brown said his team is seeing “an increase in CVs coming from there”, suspecting that the departure of designer Adrian Newey creates a domino effect that would culminate in the dismantling of Red Bull, being a consequence of the power struggle between the Austrian side and the Thai side in the energy drink brand.
But Horner says he is not worried about rumors about the possible departure of much of his senior team, revealing that Red Bull Powertrains has ‘poached’ more than 200 people from Mercedes’ engine division (HPP).
“I have no concerns. Of course, there is always movement between the teams. I don’t know how many people we or RB took from McLaren this year. Mercedes, we took 220 people from HPP to Red Bull Powertrains.”
“So when we’re talking about losing people, I would be more concerned about the 220 than the one or two here.”
Toto Wolff, Team Principal and CEO, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
Horner says it is “inevitable” that Brown and Wolff would try to inflate the case through the press.
“I think it’s inevitable. Both of them involved, they talk a lot. But I’m not going to get sucked into it. I’d be more focused on Toto’s own problems if I were him.”
Red Bull insists that sending CVs to other teams is part of the common contract renewal cycle, with Wheatley’s coming to an end soon and him having a desire to become team principal if the opportunity arises.
As determined by Motorsport.com, the team recently extended the contracts of other key names such as head of aerodynamics Enrico Balbo and head of engineering performance Ben Waterhouse. Earlier this year, technical director Pierre Waché also secured an extension.
