Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has fired a savage blow at Mercedes rival Toto Wolff, by insisting that he’d “never smash a set of headphones”.
Horner and Wolff have been rivals for years, with it often being their teams fighting for wins.
At least that was the case in 2021, when Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton duelled for the Drivers’ Championship, whilst Horner and Wolff battled with each other off the circuit.
There was a remarkable amount of tension in 2021 because of how fierce the fight was between Mercedes and Red Bull, with Wolff having broken a pair of headphones at one point during the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix that year.
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Horner has used this a couple of times when firing digs at Wolff, with his latest remark towards the Austrian being no different.
The Red Bull boss recently appeared on a podcast and stressed that he does have a “huge amount of respect” for Wolff but that he’s ultimately his “competitor”.
Horner explained how like any other sport, F1 is a “mind game”, with the Red Bull team principal having admitted that when he saw Wolff break his headphones in Saudi Arabia, he knew that the Mercedes leader was “feeling the pressure”.
“I have a huge amount of respect for everything that he’s done and achieved, but we’re competitors. I’ve never been a believer that you can be the best mate with your competitor. I think it’s dishonest,” Horner said on the Secrets of Success podcast.
“I want everybody in my team to see that whoever we’re racing against is the competition. That’s who we’re there to compete with.
“Any sport is a mind game and when you see your counterpart losing it and smashing a set of headphones out you think ‘Okay, you’re feeling the pressure’ and if he’s feeling the pressure, everybody else around him is feeling the pressure because pressure permeates from the top.
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“I would never smash a set of headphones up. You know, everybody’s different. Internally I’d have felt and mentally I would have smashed those headphones just as hard as him, but I just wouldn’t have done it physically, I think it’s just everybody is different.”
Their rivalry hasn’t existed as much since 2021, mostly because Mercedes just haven’t been in a position where they can compete with Red Bull.
Despite this, the expectation is that when the Silver Arrows are back in contention for winning races, Wolff and Horner’s rivalry will reignite.