By now, this embarrassing story of a staff member accusing Christian Horner of wrongdoing should be history, if Horner had his way.
Horner fulfilled his “business as usual” pledge when parent firm Red Bull absolved him of wrongdoing prior to last month’s Formula 1 season-opening race. After Red Bull’s first two races saw Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez finish 1-2, Horner celebrated with his ex-pop star wife as Verstappen won for the 18th and 19th time in the previous 20 races.
Horner expressed his dissatisfaction following the second Red Bull rout, saying, “I think it is time now to draw a line under it.” Enough is enough about the personal things.
It appears not to be moving
The FIA says only that any complaint would go to an independent compliance officer and ethics committee. Those are separate from the FIA, which happens to be currently investigating its own president over two whistleblower complaints. If that seems contradictory, welcome to the party.
F1 and its American owner, Liberty Media Co., have said nothing. Neither has any legal grounds to take any sort of action against Red Bull Racing; F1 says it’s up to the FIA.
Only one of Red Bull’s sponsors has publicly demanded answers, and Ford Motor Co. found that Red Bull really doesn’t care what its future engine partner wants to know. The report that cleared Horner of misconduct has allegedly been withheld from anyone who has asked to see it, including stakeholders with millions pegged on the stability and excellence of Red Bull and its competitors.
So on the season has gone, already a Red Bull runaway. Horner hasn’t missed a thing, remaining in his role as team principal with former “Spice Girl” wife, Geri Halliwell, by his side in celebratory support.
The easy punchline is wondering if all this drama will warrant, say, a 2-hour Netflix special on “Drive To Survive” but the truth is that serious allegations are being swept under the rug without transparency and almost certainly without the approval of the employee who brought the complaint.
F1 can’t be a real sport if something official isn’t done to investigate Red Bull, can it?
Red Bull would certainly be under a different level of scrutiny if it operated as a United States team, The NFL or NBA or MLB would all certainly investigate Red Bull and have smothered this a month ago before it became a watershed moment in a test of the entire series. Even if some details were kept private, punishments would not.
The FIA rules required a complaint to be lodged and now, officially, one has been lodged.
Someone has to step up and push this toward resolution, to show leadership of a series that has done nothing but grow in popularity for the past decade-plus. The FIA seems toothless here; it is still stinging from its offseason investigation into the potential sharing of information between Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, and his wife, Susie, who as head of the F1 Academy is an F1 employee.
The FIA said there had been a complaint; the next day, all nine other teams released identically worded statements denying they’d complained and the FIA quickly closed the investigation. Susie Wolf is still awaiting an apology from the FIA.
This topic has sucked all the air out of the room for F1. Nothing else matters right now, from Lewis Hamilton’s final season at Mercedes and the leadership changes at Haas to Michael Andretti’s failed bid to join F1 and the FIA’s other investigations. All of that is secondary to Red Bull telling everyone to mind their own business.
Someone has to show what kind of business F1 really is by demanding something more out of Red Bull. Be it F1, or the FIA, or every sponsor tied to Red Bull right now, someone needs to clean this up.
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