Horner on 'fine' relationship with Wolff: "Good to have rivalry"

Christian Horner and Toto Wolff will never be each other's best friends. From 2021, when Red Bull Racing could fight for the world title again for the first time since 2013, there have been so many firm altercations between the two team bosses that they cannot be counted on two hands. Yet Horner speaks of a "fine" relationship with the 51-year-old Austrian.

In the podcast Pardon My Take, Horner was asked about his relationship with Wolff. "It’s fine. I mean, look, there's healthy competition. And it's good to have a rivalry in sport.  Yeah. And, you know, they did a lot of winning. They're a great team. And now we're doing our thing. And, you know, we're tending not to look behind. We're looking forward," Horner said. 

Red Bull does not only have eyes on Mercedes

A duel between Red Bull and Mercedes (as we saw in the past) is not happening in 2023, and it does not look like it is going to be. The Austrian racing team are now focusing not on one rival but on three competitors. Red Bull are number one, but behind them it is close and so Horner has to divide his attention.

"And it's not really about Toto. I mean, it's about Ferrari, about Aston Martin. And he's no doubt got his challenges. So I'll let him focus on those," he added. 

Rivalry is part of it

The occasional clash does not seem to bother Horner much. He does like a high-profile discussion in his time. "Well, it's boring. If everybody just, you know, loves each other and whatever, you've got to have a rivalry. And that's got to fire people up. And I think that fires the fans up as well.  And there's always going to be people that support you and people that don't. And that will change from country to country that you go to," Horner concluded.