‘Horner likes to rumble, Mercedes talk on track’

Michelle Foster
Toto Wolff and Christian Horner

Toto Wolff and Christian Horner

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner “likes to rumble” while Mercedes do their talking on track, according to Toto Wolff.

The Austrian has a love-hate relationship with his Red Bull counterpart, one that is likely to be ignited further this season as Red Bull take the fight to Mercedes for the championship titles.

And if that does not happen, well that too could be the spark as Horner gives voice to his frustrations over Mercedes’ continued dominance of the sport.

Wolff, though, fired the first salvo in a preview for the third season of Netflix’s Drive to Survive.

“Christian likes to rumble around a little bit, but I think we are doing it a bit different,” Wolff said.

“We concentrate on ourselves. We don’t look too much left and right. We do the talking on the track.”

Check out all the latest Mercedes merchandise via the official Formula 1 store

While Mercedes were one of the first teams to back Red Bull’s call for an early engine freeze, saying it was the right thing to do if it means keeping Red Bull and AlphaTauri on the grid, Wolff and Horner have not always seen eye to eye.

Back in 2015, the Red Bull team boss called on the FIA to level the playing field after Mercedes qualified 1-2 for the season-opening Australian GP and followed that up with a 1-2 in the race.

Third-placed Sebastian Vettel, racing for Ferrari at the time, was 34 seconds down on race winner Lewis Hamilton.

Horner was not impressed, said the situation was “unhealthy” and “needs to be looked at”.

Wolff hit back hard.

“If you try to beat each other and perform at the highest level and then you need equalisation after the first race, you cry out after the first race, that’s not how we’ve done things in the past,” he said.

“I think ‘just get your f****** head down, work hard and try to sort it out’. I didn’t mean the F-word in relation to him [Horner].”

He added: “It’s always a political season. It was last year and it is this year.

“There is this wall in Jerusalem that you can stand in front of and complain. Maybe the guys should go there.”

The teams also clashed last season when Horner urged the FIA to look at Mercedes’ role in Racing Point’s controversial pink Mercedes.

Follow us on Twitter @Planet_F1 and like our Facebook page