Former Red Bull chief not 'snatched away' by Mercedes, according to Horner

Where some Formula 1 teams struggle to get to the budget cap limit, others find it challenging not to go over it. Red Bull Racing falls into the latter category and finds that it cannot keep all personnel on as a result. Christian Horner explained this to GPblog during a press briefing in Spain.

Asked if the budget cap makes it harder to keep staff because of the costs that have to be saved on that too, Horner replied: "Yeah, of course it does. And you can't carry, you know, anybody within the team. And I think that everybody has to warrant their place within the cap."

Horner open about departed employees Red Bull

For example, Rob Marshall, who left for McLaren after years of loyal service, kept himself busy with other projects in recent years. Moreover, Horner suspects that the Woking-based team had to dig deep to attract the technical head. "The offer that McLaren made is probably half their cap. So you can't blame him for wanting to go and do that," the 49-year-old Briton continued.

Horner also speaks out about former Red Bull HR director and COO Jayne Poole. She is now employed by Mercedes, but there would be no question of buying her way out in this case. "Where we've had redundancies through the cap, Jayne Poole was one of those as well. She was a redundancy that we made because we couldn't justify her role within the cap," said the Red Bull team boss.