This forum contains threads to discuss teams themselves. Anything not technical about the cars, including restructuring, performances etc belongs here.
It took Niki Lauda a good amount of convincing of their 2014 project to bring Hamilton to Mercedes. I don't know who can persuade Max into joining Mercedes based on a theory that they have the best engine like Lauda did.
ahahhaha, that nonsense again!! this is getting ridiculous
Lauda did virtually nothing meaningful. Ross chased Hamilton and held all important and meaninful negotiations.
Well you got me there
The point still stands that Max needs to be absolutely convinced that it's worth switching to Mercedes next year. But it's getting more certain at the moment that he's staying at Red Bull next year to see who's competitive and who's not.
Why can’t max see what happens in ‘26, and potentially take the McLaren seat? Their drivers contracts start expiring ‘26-27, McLaren will be powered by whatever Mercedes cook in their powertrains group, but he will be with the team that has more credibility in building a car with the highest competence in design.
AM could be worth joining after 2029 - by then we may have V8s that are simpler and less expensive to R&D, and by then Newey and the AM team will have got their team organised and ready to compete, surely. He’d also enjoy the 1 man team set up with stroll collecting the left overs and have the Newey car to himself.
ahahhaha, that nonsense again!! this is getting ridiculous
Lauda did virtually nothing meaningful. Ross chased Hamilton and held all important and meaninful negotiations.
Well you got me there
The point still stands that Max needs to be absolutely convinced that it's worth switching to Mercedes next year. But it's getting more certain at the moment that he's staying at Red Bull next year to see who's competitive and who's not.
Why can’t max see what happens in ‘26, and potentially take the McLaren seat? Their drivers contracts start expiring ‘26-27, McLaren will be powered by whatever Mercedes cook in their powertrains group, but he will be with the team that has more credibility in building a car with the highest competence in design.
AM could be worth joining after 2029 - by then we may have V8s that are simpler and less expensive to R&D, and by then Newey and the AM team will have got their team organised and ready to compete, surely. He’d also enjoy the 1 man team set up with stroll collecting the left overs and have the Newey car to himself.
Imo Max is extremely loyal, he has been attached to RB since he was a kid. I think what he is doing now he is doing for Marko and Austrian RB to get control back on their side and see RBR successful in the long term. He most likely will stay another year to see the lay of the land and take it from there.
Imo Max is extremely loyal, he has been attached to RB since he was a kid. I think what he is doing now he is doing for Marko and Austrian RB to get control back on their side and see RBR successful in the long term. He most likely will stay another year to see the lay of the land and take it from there.
I think this is a great point that is underrepresented. You can’t underestimate the impact that the kind of childhood he had, has on decisions later in life.
I tend to agree with Waz’s and others’ takes that Newey does not have conflict with Horner. I’ll add: if Newey understood RBR corporate structure well enough, he would have understood Dietrich Mateschitz' role within it. He could have foreseen what would happen to the team in the absence of Dietrich. When Dietrich passed, Newey may have seen that the writing was on the wall.
"I don't believe in 50 friends. I believe in a smaller number. Nor do I care about society events. It's the most senseless use of time. When I do go out, from time to time, it's just to convince myself again that I'm not missing a lot" -Dietrich Mateschitz
People speculate about Horner’s aspirations to power, but he would have always known the reality of his situation: that he could be fired. Factor this into whatever stories are being spun about megalomania. Detractors are saying he thought himself a god, but in reality he knew he was ultimately only an employee. Maybe he was the last of the old crew trying to hold things together within a post-Matechitz Red Bull. Hence an emotional departure speech. If he foresaw the old Red Bull Racing dying, the one which was highly novel (“...fizzy drinks company beats Ferrari, Renault, Toyota, BMW, McLaren, Williams...”), which had clenched success time and again, then he’d be motivated to accrue influence or ownership, not just for his own ego, but to keep the glory days going. To keep being able to provide his colleagues like Adrian Newey what they needed to succeed. The arrangement enabled Newey to work on dream car projects with Gran Turismo, Aston Martin, and RBAT, sometimes even while the team was losing. Horner beginning around ’06 gave Newey a bean-counter free blank sheet of large format drafting paper to work upon, and over time, perhaps this arrangement became threatened. Horner could no longer guarantee this, as he is not the ultimate power there. He was dismissed, after all.
So what really happened? “You can stay, but I can’t promise reinforcements,” an imaginary Christian Horner says to Adrian Newey two years ago upon the battlefield. “If you need to fall back, do It. I’d do the same in your shoes.”
A novelty take I’ll offer is that Newey may have followed Honda amidst the looming uncertainty of a post-Mateschitz Red Bull Racing. It may not only have been a lucrative offer by AMR, or Stroll providing a Horner-esque blank slate. Recall that it was Honda who gave Red Bull the missing key to winning championships again. They may have not only won Newey’s loyalty and respect, they simply proved that they are an engine supplier who can be trusted to master complex regulations. If Newey puts in a good word for Horner, could we see such a crazy thing him also moving to AMR? I’d be surprised. It’s a big shakeup to replace team principals. For one, do AMR already like their current team principal, and big regs changes are looming at the same time. While I’m out on this particular limb: is there any chance of Verstappen moving to AMR? I’d assume Stroll’s and Alonso’s seats are secure, though. All the talk is of a move to Merc, but remember that engine regs for 2026 is not as big as the one in 2014. There's no new tech being introduced, it's just rearrangement of the existing tech. So the gap should be smaller amongst the engine suppliers this time around. Perhaps further solidifying Adrian's confidence in Honda vs the presumed 2026 favorite of Mercedes. In a more open regs set, maybe Mercedes could once again produce a dominant PU; but the regs will likely prevent that in the same way that they are currently preventing that.
All told, some of the reactions so far are predictable. Hamilton fans haven’t been this excited since glorious leader donned a helmet that depicted the spectral bands of the visible wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. Others meanwhile are in there respective camps: Jos-vilifying, Horner-blaming, Newey-deifying. What’s certain though is that we all are forced to share the same fate in the near future, that is, we will all have to wait to hear who goes where. It comes to mind that Max Verstappen /had/ been wanting to try his hand at managing a motorsports team... Would be funny if he accidentally’s into the role of an F1 team principal. He’d be the most popular guy within the RBR at this point in time to "promote within the ranks" lol.
Someone mentioned earlier that RBR employees are unhappy with the more ‘corporate’ atmosphere that’s arisen after Mateschitz’ passing. That’s speculative, but might be true, and if so... Well, welcome to the corporate world, where a few non-employees who don’t work at the place of business, whom you’ve never met, vie for power amongst themselves, damn the consequences. Where shareholders who do nothing operations related, and make nothing tangible, determine what everyone will be doing. Fire the one boss you liked, fire coworkers, rearrange the deck chairs, make you lose track of where you left your pen.
Loyalty is real for max but it doesn’t mean he wants his career to follow this teams trajectory, and make no mistake, red bull’s trajectory is midfield. They’re struggling to keep their head above water despite being given a massive head start in these regs under Newey.
How can we expect the team to make a championship contending package without Newey protecting the technical team from going down the wrong path? Even being on the right path for 2 years under Newey, they are struggling to make what was the car of the field, to be competitive enough to win the titles, the technical team have lost their way.
If he wants to win more titles he most likely neeeds to do the switch. And given max doesn’t want to be in f1 for very long, he needs to make a decisive decision in the next 2 years.
I was just thinking to myself, are we seeing the foundations of "Team Verstappen" being laid?
Although capable of a self launch, there would be no shortage of funding from other places it were to happen
When arguing with a fool, be sure the other person is not doing the same thing.
Well you got me there
The point still stands that Max needs to be absolutely convinced that it's worth switching to Mercedes next year. But it's getting more certain at the moment that he's staying at Red Bull next year to see who's competitive and who's not.
Why can’t max see what happens in ‘26, and potentially take the McLaren seat? Their drivers contracts start expiring ‘26-27, McLaren will be powered by whatever Mercedes cook in their powertrains group, but he will be with the team that has more credibility in building a car with the highest competence in design.
AM could be worth joining after 2029 - by then we may have V8s that are simpler and less expensive to R&D, and by then Newey and the AM team will have got their team organised and ready to compete, surely. He’d also enjoy the 1 man team set up with stroll collecting the left overs and have the Newey car to himself.
Imo Max is extremely loyal, he has been attached to RB since he was a kid. I think what he is doing now he is doing for Marko and Austrian RB to get control back on their side and see RBR successful in the long term. He most likely will stay another year to see the lay of the land and take it from there.
Agreed. Max has said multiple times, as recently as Silverstone, that he would like to see out his career at Red Bull.
Now, of course "would like to" leaves room for other things, but I am convinced that he will stay for 2026 and see the lay of the land.
If the Merc PU is indeed the class of the field AND Petronas get the fuel right, then why the assumption that Mercedes will be the team to beat and not McLaren who have shown themselves better at the ground effect aero??
"From success, you learn absolutely nothing. From failure and setbacks, conclusions can be drawn." - Niki Lauda
Well you got me there
The point still stands that Max needs to be absolutely convinced that it's worth switching to Mercedes next year. But it's getting more certain at the moment that he's staying at Red Bull next year to see who's competitive and who's not.
Why can’t max see what happens in ‘26, and potentially take the McLaren seat? Their drivers contracts start expiring ‘26-27, McLaren will be powered by whatever Mercedes cook in their powertrains group, but he will be with the team that has more credibility in building a car with the highest competence in design.
AM could be worth joining after 2029 - by then we may have V8s that are simpler and less expensive to R&D, and by then Newey and the AM team will have got their team organised and ready to compete, surely. He’d also enjoy the 1 man team set up with stroll collecting the left overs and have the Newey car to himself.
Imo Max is extremely loyal, he has been attached to RB since he was a kid. I think what he is doing now he is doing for Marko and Austrian RB to get control back on their side and see RBR successful in the long term. He most likely will stay another year to see the lay of the land and take it from there.
I thought he pretty much skipped the young driver programme, joined in 2014 and was in the junior team shortly after.
Thank you to God for making me an Atheist - Ricky Gervais.
Why can’t max see what happens in ‘26, and potentially take the McLaren seat? Their drivers contracts start expiring ‘26-27, McLaren will be powered by whatever Mercedes cook in their powertrains group, but he will be with the team that has more credibility in building a car with the highest competence in design.
AM could be worth joining after 2029 - by then we may have V8s that are simpler and less expensive to R&D, and by then Newey and the AM team will have got their team organised and ready to compete, surely. He’d also enjoy the 1 man team set up with stroll collecting the left overs and have the Newey car to himself.
Imo Max is extremely loyal, he has been attached to RB since he was a kid. I think what he is doing now he is doing for Marko and Austrian RB to get control back on their side and see RBR successful in the long term. He most likely will stay another year to see the lay of the land and take it from there.
Agreed. Max has said multiple times, as recently as Silverstone, that he would like to see out his career at Red Bull.
Now, of course "would like to" leaves room for other things, but I am convinced that he will stay for 2026 and see the lay of the land.
If the Merc PU is indeed the class of the field AND Petronas get the fuel right, then why the assumption that Mercedes will be the team to beat and not McLaren who have shown themselves better at the ground effect aero??
Verstappen probably already signed with Mercedes, broke the news to the Redbull board and then the news of Christian getting sacked, and immediate changes of TP and CEO happens.
Why do I think that? Because, it adds up.
There is no possible reason why Redbull would sack Horner so immediate, even after all of the allegations and performance clauses. I would understand after the end of the season Horner would be probably outed from RBR but, the changes happen soo fast that Redbull are desperately looking for alternatives.
I think had Verstappen stayed and offer an ultimatum to stay with the team, none of this wouldn’t have happened so quickly. But the Verstappen camp didn’t issue any ultimatum.
Imo Max is extremely loyal, he has been attached to RB since he was a kid. I think what he is doing now he is doing for Marko and Austrian RB to get control back on their side and see RBR successful in the long term. He most likely will stay another year to see the lay of the land and take it from there.
Agreed. Max has said multiple times, as recently as Silverstone, that he would like to see out his career at Red Bull.
Now, of course "would like to" leaves room for other things, but I am convinced that he will stay for 2026 and see the lay of the land.
If the Merc PU is indeed the class of the field AND Petronas get the fuel right, then why the assumption that Mercedes will be the team to beat and not McLaren who have shown themselves better at the ground effect aero??
Verstappen probably already signed with Mercedes, broke the news to the Redbull board and then the news of Christian getting sacked, and immediate changes of TP and CEO happens.
Why do I think that? Because, it adds up.
There is no possible reason why Redbull would sack Horner so immediate, even after all of the allegations and performance clauses. I would understand after the end of the season Horner would be probably outed from RBR but, the changes happen soo fast that Redbull are desperately looking for alternatives.
I think had Verstappen stayed and offer an ultimatum to stay with the team, none of this wouldn’t have happened so quickly. But the Verstappen camp didn’t issue any ultimatum.
Yeah his live streams and talking with his redline members, about a Mercedes move. However Mercedes has a probelm as well cause despite Toto "flirting" with Max he want to keep the same line up for 2026. So they are in a internal battle as well. Let's see. All this is just good news for the Red Bull Juniors now including Tsunoda. There is also another problem. Ford has repeatedly been biased towards Sergio Perez since they joined the team. They did backtrack after he was dropped but I would not count it out for Serfio to Rejoint he team for 2026 if Max leaves.
Just heard the news, extremely disappointed. The only "racing" reason I can think of is that max has signed somewhere else, I.e. he failed to retain at least one hallmark-piece of the last enormously successful team that was (and that he built), to keep the fire going towards a rebuild. Big shoes to fill and mekkies certainly is not of that caliber, if only Wheatley would've been in. Sigh.. Feels lights out for RB.
Thank you for everything Christian, forever my #1 team principal full stop.
