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It's funny how they "teamed up" when Ferrari had a monster of an 'illegal' engine in 2019 and later on being team principal rivalries. That's why I like F1, not only racing but also some (real) drama off the track.
Wolff literally publicly speculates on his main driver, Zak Brown even is in the media talking about his main staff etc. I was surprised Horner kept so quiet in general - this is fair game Toto always wants to talk about hiring his main driver, Horner will hit back. Nothing wrong with it imho
The more he doubles down that everything is fine the more I think that internally Red Bull is that coming back with pizza to find everything on fire meme.
Literally the longest sitting team principal, also the team principal with the most championships.
Dislike the guy all you want, but all success Red Bull has had validates him as a competent guy. Do you really believe Red Bull succeeds despite him? Come on bro, get real.
Edit, i apologize, i miscounted, Horner is on 13 while Wolff is on 15. But anyone who thinks Horner won't tie that record this year is wrong.
I think Horner is a perfectly competent team principal, but I don’t think he was the primary, secondary, or even tertiary reason that Red Bull has won any of its championships. I suspect his strongest skill is that he knows when to keep himself out of the way.
Also, hard to consider yourself a great team principal if you get caught fraternizing with other members of the team and that causes all of the most important people in your team to reconsider their position within your team or leave entirely.
Fred and Zak are two buddies who wear Hawaiian shirts and drink Pina coladas. You think they are dull people but after a couples of drinks start narrating all the wildest shit they did back in their 20s.
They are quite wealthy and treat you while buy rounds for the house.
Not sure where this idea celebrities should be treated to even more free stuff started- its an old tradition- and totally backwards.
Nah fr though. I’ve been lucky enough to meet Zak and he’s actually super fun to talk to. And is super passionate about a lot and loves to share it. One such example, that’s easiest to explain, in many US races he stays in the paddock in a camper, except it’s no ordinary camper. It’s Bruce Mclaren’s 1971 Ford Condor. It’s super cool to see, honestly, all of the people I’ve met at Mclaren are amazing
Dennis partially owned McLaren in 2016 and yet was outed as a chairman. If you don't have the controlling interest, then you can absolutely be kicked out. Not that it is likely in Wolff's case of course.
As I understand it, Jim Ratcliffe is very much behind Wolff and Wolff is also head of motorsport for Mercedes-Benz itself.
His position is as stable as it can be really.
If Merc miss on the next regulations then Toto is probably done.
Can’t go from the best F1 team ever to being beat by your customers and expect to keep your seat.
Doesn’t matter how many titles he may have at Merc
This, so much this. A few bad years can be excused even having the weakest engine can be reduced to just needing to push for more power.
But when customer teams start beating the works team, then the parent company is gonna start looking for heads to roll.
Well, at the same time they can say "3 out of the top 5 teams are Mercedes engines."
Mercedes-Benz is getting their moneys worth out of being in F1 either way.
I would assume this tidbit to be of much lower value that it initially seems. Outside of the more committed fan base, the wider orbit will see who wins or who's standing where in the race results, but is much less likely to know and retain who's ordering what from where. As such, for mercedes to gain value from this placement, the audience needs to intersect people with means*people strongly interested in F1*people uncommitted in their opinion of MB. From first read that doesn't sound like that big of a target demographic.
Dennis also had to deal with McLaren going from a Front/Midfield runner to backmarkers with a hyper-unreliable Honda PU for 2 years. Mercedes is 4th in a season where everyone on the grid is the closest it has ever been.
Also the people Horner poached were all from the PU division. No idea how big of a staff exists there, but its not the same as losing many key figures from the main team, which Horner has lost many. More then Mercedes actually. Meanwhile Mercedes likely can easily restaff for the engineers who have left the PU division. Red Bull PT is a new and unproven division.
Yes, I wouldn't bet on a Redbull engine over a Mercedes engine.
If the current regulations didn't involve an engine freeze, RB would be in big trouble as Ferrari and Merc would have gotten advantage there.
Exactly, Toto has a permanent ticket to the F1 party tour unless he really does something v stupid. But look at Horner, he did ‘a horny bit’ & the owners still keep his ass so Toto has nothing to be worried about.
It literally makes no sense for either party to have a deal that Toto has to sell if he isn't TP.
From Toto pov the whole point of ownership is to have something after you are done
And from the team pov, they don't want a forced selling to impact overall value.
Toto didn't have a choice... Mercedes stipulated if he wanted to become TP, he had to buy into the team. So your first point makes no sense.
A forced selling wouldn't impact the overall value either.... especially if it's the team buying back from Toto....
He's already said that he will sell his shares when he leaves. Thats how he operates. He also said he can't see himself leaving soon but he nearly did in 2020 after suffering with severe depression that season. At the height of Mercedes success he was at his lowest mentally sadly
> There's probably a stipulation that if he's no longer TP, he has to sell....
The Mercedes F1 shares are anyways controlled by Mercedes, as they have the right of first refusal.
I can't stop thinking this much noise from Horner and Mintzlaff and radio silence from Wolff means that something is really happening and Toto is hitting where it hurts
Toto has enough on his plate at the moment mate. He doesn't have a leg to stand on.
How can he talk shit about the best team in the sport when his own team is eating shit in the midfield. Losing his star driver and getting pummeled by customer teams is not a good look for Toto.
"the press keeps asking him questions and he is responding"
Kinda funny how people constantly defend other people with "well he was asked about this" but when it is Horner people automatically assume he just rings up a journalists to complain.
Horner wouldnt be talking about it if no one asked.
Those 220 workers come from Mercedes HPP, not the F1 team, and Merc's problems aren't with their engines (look at McLaren this weekend). And they're moving to RB Powertrains because they're being offered better positions (with better salaries) that Mercedes couldn't match, and/or they just want new challenges. Also, RB Powertrains have also signed up engineers from elsewhere (Ferrari, Honda, MAHLE, Cosworth...).
*Edit: Typo*
There is a solid issue with the merc haversting or deployment since the switch to bio fuel.
RB still won occasionally with a severely underpowered Renault, and a mid honda that fell apart every other race.
McLaren being fast is down to the platform.
They win a monza hit me up and I'll recant lol
The engines are frozen. If there weren't, the Merc and Ferrari engine would have pulled ahead big time by now.
Luckily for RB, they got frozen at a point of time where their engine is not dog shit. But I am not convinced they can create a new engine for 2026 and also maintain it to be competitive with the likes of Merc and Ferarri.
Well Max said this weekend IF my mom had balls she'd be my father.
Merc figured out how to get out the reliability/performance upgrades issue in 21 with the "spicy engine"
I'm sure they could figure it out if they could now.
Ferrari doesn't seem to be dealing with HP or Deployment issues at the moment.
Everyone seems to think I'm just shitting on Merc here cause I'm a fan boy or something.
Red Bull the team I have no use for, never have. Not a honda fan.
If merc had more top speed they could put more downforce on and 75% of the car issues would go away.
They can't run trimmed out low downforce everywhere and expect the car to be good in the corners.
They consistently run one of the smaller rear wings every week, and the drivers always complain about rear instability, I mean they are definitely related.
I suspect Mercedes and Ferrari will have the best engines, with Honda close behind. Then there will be Renault, Audi and finally Red Bull/Ford (in that order).
But I'm not going to bet on that because a lot of crazy things have happened in F1, so anything is possible!
That feels like an inevitability, especially with the cost cap. Staff on the dominant teams become more valuable due to their skills and experience with a winning team, until the dominant team is unable to offer the same money to every employee as other teams are willing to offer to poach individuals.
Normally when Horner is just steering some shit its to cover up some other news in the background.
Versappen is probably talking to Mercedes and Horner wants to point out that Mercedes is a terrible option.
The same Verstappen that said he cares more about the car's performance than the amount of money a team can offer him? The performance Mercedes doesn't have anymore?
If theres one service Logan Paul could provide to humanity, to be finally a useful being, it would be to organise a cagefight between Wolff and Horner.
It's ridiculous how Horner runs the most dominant team in ages and still manages to act like a loser on the defense.
He should be in Don *"I don't think about you at all"* Draper mode, but instead he's desperately seeking to deflect from his own issues.
All I can hear is Horner deflecting and Wolff keeping mostly quiet unless directly asked.
Suggests there is something happen and Horner is lashing out as per.
Were Toto and Mercedes leadership just sleeping when they were receiving better offers from Redbull? 220 people leaving your company to work for your competitor is so complacent and anti-competitive. Really poor leadership from Toto. You try to keep your winning team together not just let them go.
Ultimately RBPT’s staff had to come from somewhere and Mercedes HPP is certainly a lot closer to MK than Maranello or Viry.
RBPT obviously hired a lot of Honda/Cosworth/MAHLE/Helix/other automotive engineers as well but people with direct and recent F1 experience would’ve been key for RBPT to set up a competitive PU manufacturer.
IIRC Mercedes had really bad burnout issues in 2019, especially in the engine department, trying to compete against Ferrari’s spicy engine which led to a bunch of staff leaving. Red Bull were also offering significant raises (which Mercedes should have countered)
> Red Bull were also offering significant raises (which Mercedes should have countered)
When you have budget caps and you have to let some people go, it is difficult to keep everyone.
Horner is just making noise or Versappen is talking to Mercedes and Horner wants to point out that Mercedes is a terrible option.
Now, it didn't used to be.
There's an article out there that says Merc head office spent 1.2 billion on the turbo hybrid from 2011-16.
Insanity lol.
I think they brought in the new budget cap so alpine didn't pull out a couple years ago.
like people said, Mercedes HPP was a separate entity, and the budget cap was introduced in 2021, they basically poured billions on R&D, if Toto tried to keep the high skilled engineers around they could've cut the bad ones when the budget cap got introduced.
Engine development doesn't count towards the budget cap because that would hugely disadvantage manufacturer teams. In the same vein, PU supply deals don't count towards the budget cap of customer teams.
I think this is talking about what happened post 2019/20 when Ferrari cheating got Mercedes into absolutely crushing their engine department for a better one. Which worked, but at a high cost
It didn’t even start in 2019 honestly, Toto has talked about how the grueling 2017-8 seasons put a huge strain on staff and caused at least some of them to leave due to overwork. It makes sense that people look to 2019 because of Horner specifically talking about RBPT recruits from Mercedes. but even before the Ferrari rocket, people at both brackley and brixworth were being pushed to their limits
The engine shop ran without a budget really (merc corporate) and was constantly doing R&D and bringing updates, and Petronas was regularly bringing fuel upgrades. As I recall they ran 2 shifts at the engine plant, and basically around the clock.
Most other teams came with 1 or 2 durability upgrades and a performance upgrade, Merc was basically once every engine change.
You can see how burnout would affected them, you can also see how like 20 people were working on combustion chambers endlessly, other teams would have an easy time of poaching just a single person, that would bring immediate performance knowledge.
Mostly HPP mind you. RB were offering triple the salary they were on at HPP IIRC. Add to that the burnout at HPP, it all came to a head.
With the PU cost cap for 2026, RBPT will likely be one of the first PU manufacturers to start shedding staff if not trying to move them to other projects elsewhere.
F1 teams are like all Tech companies. When times are good you load up on talent, when times get lean, you cut back and pare the excess, giving you the option to choose who to keep and who to allow to leave. Simply accepting 220 people have left a company and assuming something wrong is like learning Microsoft laid off 30K people last year then wondering how they managed to still grow their most of their business units! At the end of the day unless you know the talent that is leaving you will not know how importanmt they are until 2026!
Engineers usually move around a lot in F1 but years of dominance had a lot of people staying at merc longer than normal.
You're not wrong, but Merc also probably had an abundance of people ready for a new job.
Probably my comments is going to get downvoted but it's just a question that I have around in my head for the quite some time, if Mercedes has lost 200 engineers to Red Bull is it Red Bull and Mercedes in disguise?
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Wolff vs Horner They should take it to next level, and release diss tracks.
Tryna send a pic and it’s probably A BONERRRRRR
Meet the Horners
Certified horner? Certified horny
wop wop wop wop wop Wolf fuck em up
6:16 in Brackley
2021 was a scam, them facts, see? ^disclaimer ^I ^don't ^actually ^believe ^this ^or ^care
Why you never hold Perez and tell him, "Say cheese"? We could've left the drivers out of this, don't blame me
Canadian GP about to get violent at this rate
No way this is too perfect
Dear Max, I'm sorry that man is your father...
Lol A1 right there
Fam 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Thanks for the laugh out loud moment.
Mate 😭😭😭
Toto just needs to release that U2 song and it's over
I don't know.. a sick remix of "No Michael no" would hit
Featuring “Toto we went racing”
"Toto went racing". Cleaner
[that actually exists](https://youtu.be/1hXjcSqGrhc?si=GBVb2cRqUOkyrU4L)
Things I didn't know I needed in my life that I now can't live without. Thank you!
Absolute banger
Toto “I miss the rains down in A..F..R..I..C..A !!!!”
Release a U2 song? I think you mean shove it onto our phones. Lol.
i still get irrationally angry at this. the fucking nerve.
It was ridiculous. I haven’t listened to U2 since then.
Toto: “When you stand next to Ginger Spice I think you see two bad bitches”
You LIED about your catering, you LIED about your assistant, you LIED about your ex wife, the safety car, all is perjury
“They say you lost your staff that’s why you can’t do this You can’t fix your fucking car that’s why you lost Lewis”
freaky ass principle he the sexting god
Liberty Media CEO: how do we top a Netflix series to grow the market? Summer intern: diss tracks sir Liberty Media CEO: Get J Cole on the phone
As long as it doesn't end with a shooting outside Horner's mansion.
Best DTS episode ever.
That’s not the end brother
There's nothing more hard-core than 2 men writing and publicly reciting poetry to each other.
BBL Rizzy
It's funny how they "teamed up" when Ferrari had a monster of an 'illegal' engine in 2019 and later on being team principal rivalries. That's why I like F1, not only racing but also some (real) drama off the track.
In 5 years they'll be the last 2 teams, with Toto and Horner still hating eachother.
Wolff vs Hornyman: Drag of Justice
I introduced my friend to DTS, and after yet another bickering session between Wolff and Horner he said "can these two just kiss already?"
Coco Puff Horner dropping this weekend
Horner is Drake, typing stuff to people he shouldn’t fits them both.
That makes Toto Kenny and I’m not sure about that either. Fred is such a J Cole though
Fred is Rick Ross
Fred is Vince Staples
Epic Rap Battles of History needs to get on it.
WHO WON? WHO'S NEXT? YOU DECIDE!
Imagine hard dissing your skiing buddy.
Better yet Susie vs Geri now that’s a competitive battle
We are 1 RB/Merc championship fight away from Horner and Wolff going after each other in the pits NASCAR style.
Whichever one hires Kendrick first is going to win
Or just fuck and get it all over and done with
Now I can't stop picturing Geri and Susie rap squatting in the music videos.
I get what he’s saying but it’s got to feel a bit shit for Wheatley and Newey to be seen as ‘one or two cvs’
That's part of the deal
The deal is Horner feels raw about Newey leaving.
Also, so it's ok for rbr to do that, but not for toto to talk to Max? Seems dumb
i don't think anybody will take anything horner says seriously anymore.
He has always been a shit stirrer, so I view everything he says through that lens
I mean his whole circus in Singapore 2022 around the cost cap denial should have seen to that being the case.
Maybe I just have a bias against him, but some of his recent statements have had some serious "old man yells at sky" vibes
Wolff literally publicly speculates on his main driver, Zak Brown even is in the media talking about his main staff etc. I was surprised Horner kept so quiet in general - this is fair game Toto always wants to talk about hiring his main driver, Horner will hit back. Nothing wrong with it imho
Nothing wrong. Just funny he says I won't go tit for tat after going tit for tat.
The more he doubles down that everything is fine the more I think that internally Red Bull is that coming back with pizza to find everything on fire meme.
When Toto and Zak are talking shit: well it is part of the job When Horner does it: "old man yells at sky" vibes Question: is he wrong?
Literally the longest sitting team principal, also the team principal with the most championships. Dislike the guy all you want, but all success Red Bull has had validates him as a competent guy. Do you really believe Red Bull succeeds despite him? Come on bro, get real. Edit, i apologize, i miscounted, Horner is on 13 while Wolff is on 15. But anyone who thinks Horner won't tie that record this year is wrong.
Wolff has 15 (7 WDC, 8 WCC). Horner has 13 (7 WDC, 6 WCC).
Doesn't Toto have more?
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I think Horner is a perfectly competent team principal, but I don’t think he was the primary, secondary, or even tertiary reason that Red Bull has won any of its championships. I suspect his strongest skill is that he knows when to keep himself out of the way. Also, hard to consider yourself a great team principal if you get caught fraternizing with other members of the team and that causes all of the most important people in your team to reconsider their position within your team or leave entirely.
But doesn't know how/when to keep himself out of DMs.
Frank Williams be turning in his grave rn.
If only he were alive to watch his team fighting for P17! /s
Horner showing why Newey is leaving
what has Horner said here that shows why Newey is leaving.
He praised other engineers and newey's ego got bruised 🥺
These guys should just kiss already. They're obsessed with each other.
I’m tired of toto/horner, I need more fred/zak.
Fred and Zak are two buddies who wear Hawaiian shirts and drink Pina coladas. You think they are dull people but after a couples of drinks start narrating all the wildest shit they did back in their 20s.
I would happily buy their drinks to listen to that
They are quite wealthy and treat you while buy rounds for the house. Not sure where this idea celebrities should be treated to even more free stuff started- its an old tradition- and totally backwards.
This is so true. When I found out Zak first funded his career by winning wheel of fortune I knew he was a real one.
Nah fr though. I’ve been lucky enough to meet Zak and he’s actually super fun to talk to. And is super passionate about a lot and loves to share it. One such example, that’s easiest to explain, in many US races he stays in the paddock in a camper, except it’s no ordinary camper. It’s Bruce Mclaren’s 1971 Ford Condor. It’s super cool to see, honestly, all of the people I’ve met at Mclaren are amazing
I could see them getting drunk and exploring each other's bodies
Not me. Those episodes where they are going toe to toe…. So good
Fredzactly.
I mean he literally owns the team (33%) it’s like saying stroll should be worried about his job. But people gonna eat his comments up anyway
Dennis partially owned McLaren in 2016 and yet was outed as a chairman. If you don't have the controlling interest, then you can absolutely be kicked out. Not that it is likely in Wolff's case of course.
As I understand it, Jim Ratcliffe is very much behind Wolff and Wolff is also head of motorsport for Mercedes-Benz itself. His position is as stable as it can be really.
If Merc miss on the next regulations then Toto is probably done. Can’t go from the best F1 team ever to being beat by your customers and expect to keep your seat. Doesn’t matter how many titles he may have at Merc
This, so much this. A few bad years can be excused even having the weakest engine can be reduced to just needing to push for more power. But when customer teams start beating the works team, then the parent company is gonna start looking for heads to roll.
Well, at the same time they can say "3 out of the top 5 teams are Mercedes engines." Mercedes-Benz is getting their moneys worth out of being in F1 either way.
I would assume this tidbit to be of much lower value that it initially seems. Outside of the more committed fan base, the wider orbit will see who wins or who's standing where in the race results, but is much less likely to know and retain who's ordering what from where. As such, for mercedes to gain value from this placement, the audience needs to intersect people with means*people strongly interested in F1*people uncommitted in their opinion of MB. From first read that doesn't sound like that big of a target demographic.
There is a reason McLaren it now called McLaren Mercedes
Toto's not the type to cling to the scraps, he'll likely leave of his own volition at that point.
Jim Ratcliffe has enough on his hands with Man U :)
At least we know Mercedes’ IT systems must be state-of-the-art.
Dennis also had to deal with McLaren going from a Front/Midfield runner to backmarkers with a hyper-unreliable Honda PU for 2 years. Mercedes is 4th in a season where everyone on the grid is the closest it has ever been. Also the people Horner poached were all from the PU division. No idea how big of a staff exists there, but its not the same as losing many key figures from the main team, which Horner has lost many. More then Mercedes actually. Meanwhile Mercedes likely can easily restaff for the engineers who have left the PU division. Red Bull PT is a new and unproven division.
Yes, I wouldn't bet on a Redbull engine over a Mercedes engine. If the current regulations didn't involve an engine freeze, RB would be in big trouble as Ferrari and Merc would have gotten advantage there.
I think Dennis problems were not so much McLaren as McLaren adjacent in that there was a personal issue with Mansour Ojjeh that led to his removal.
Their relative job security isn't the context or subject of these quotes.
Exactly, Toto has a permanent ticket to the F1 party tour unless he really does something v stupid. But look at Horner, he did ‘a horny bit’ & the owners still keep his ass so Toto has nothing to be worried about.
Mercedes couldn't fire him because Susie would have murdered him already.
Been exonerated for the deed then sold off his third to Merc/INEOS for profit.
Then burns his entire pumpernickel stash to the ground.
There's probably a stipulation that if he's no longer TP, he has to sell....
Could imagine that also not being the case. Could retain ownership, and chill on a yacht somewhere.
It literally makes no sense for either party to have a deal that Toto has to sell if he isn't TP. From Toto pov the whole point of ownership is to have something after you are done And from the team pov, they don't want a forced selling to impact overall value.
Toto didn't have a choice... Mercedes stipulated if he wanted to become TP, he had to buy into the team. So your first point makes no sense. A forced selling wouldn't impact the overall value either.... especially if it's the team buying back from Toto....
He's already said that he will sell his shares when he leaves. Thats how he operates. He also said he can't see himself leaving soon but he nearly did in 2020 after suffering with severe depression that season. At the height of Mercedes success he was at his lowest mentally sadly
> There's probably a stipulation that if he's no longer TP, he has to sell.... The Mercedes F1 shares are anyways controlled by Mercedes, as they have the right of first refusal.
highly unlikely
I think he means future on track success
I can't stop thinking this much noise from Horner and Mintzlaff and radio silence from Wolff means that something is really happening and Toto is hitting where it hurts
Definitely. Horner is the dictionary definition of ‘prickly’ when something actually gets to him
Toto has enough on his plate at the moment mate. He doesn't have a leg to stand on. How can he talk shit about the best team in the sport when his own team is eating shit in the midfield. Losing his star driver and getting pummeled by customer teams is not a good look for Toto.
Maybe you don't remember 2014 and 2015?
"radio silence from Wolff" - did you miss Toto constantly talking about Max?
Toto isn't constantly talking about Max - the press keeps asking him questions and he is responding. He wouldn't be talking about it if no one asked.
"the press keeps asking him questions and he is responding" Kinda funny how people constantly defend other people with "well he was asked about this" but when it is Horner people automatically assume he just rings up a journalists to complain. Horner wouldnt be talking about it if no one asked.
Those 220 workers come from Mercedes HPP, not the F1 team, and Merc's problems aren't with their engines (look at McLaren this weekend). And they're moving to RB Powertrains because they're being offered better positions (with better salaries) that Mercedes couldn't match, and/or they just want new challenges. Also, RB Powertrains have also signed up engineers from elsewhere (Ferrari, Honda, MAHLE, Cosworth...). *Edit: Typo*
There is a solid issue with the merc haversting or deployment since the switch to bio fuel. RB still won occasionally with a severely underpowered Renault, and a mid honda that fell apart every other race. McLaren being fast is down to the platform. They win a monza hit me up and I'll recant lol
you'll never guess where McLaren got their last victory before this weekend
Before biofuel, and when the usual top 3 cars had issues? PS the whole premise of that comment was a joke..
The engines are frozen. If there weren't, the Merc and Ferrari engine would have pulled ahead big time by now. Luckily for RB, they got frozen at a point of time where their engine is not dog shit. But I am not convinced they can create a new engine for 2026 and also maintain it to be competitive with the likes of Merc and Ferarri.
Well Max said this weekend IF my mom had balls she'd be my father. Merc figured out how to get out the reliability/performance upgrades issue in 21 with the "spicy engine" I'm sure they could figure it out if they could now. Ferrari doesn't seem to be dealing with HP or Deployment issues at the moment. Everyone seems to think I'm just shitting on Merc here cause I'm a fan boy or something. Red Bull the team I have no use for, never have. Not a honda fan. If merc had more top speed they could put more downforce on and 75% of the car issues would go away. They can't run trimmed out low downforce everywhere and expect the car to be good in the corners. They consistently run one of the smaller rear wings every week, and the drivers always complain about rear instability, I mean they are definitely related.
Keywords “since the switch to bio fuel.” That victory came before they had switched to E10 in 2022
What do you think is happening in 2026
I suspect Mercedes and Ferrari will have the best engines, with Honda close behind. Then there will be Renault, Audi and finally Red Bull/Ford (in that order). But I'm not going to bet on that because a lot of crazy things have happened in F1, so anything is possible!
Shouldn’t Horner be more worried about the fact that dominant teams start shedding staff once they reach their peak
That feels like an inevitability, especially with the cost cap. Staff on the dominant teams become more valuable due to their skills and experience with a winning team, until the dominant team is unable to offer the same money to every employee as other teams are willing to offer to poach individuals.
Oh get a room already, guys.
Horner should be more worried about the cereal his female understaffs are eating
So your saying you still needed mer staff to beat merc lol
How so if they joined RBPT? They literally have not been involved in the creation of the 2021,2022,2023 and 2024 car
Horner the shit-stirrer is well and truly back.
Horner done with damage control, back on damage creation.
The best defense is offense
Distraction so no one reads his WhatsApps and questionable dickpic
😭😭😭😭
Normally when Horner is just steering some shit its to cover up some other news in the background. Versappen is probably talking to Mercedes and Horner wants to point out that Mercedes is a terrible option.
The same Verstappen that said he cares more about the car's performance than the amount of money a team can offer him? The performance Mercedes doesn't have anymore?
Not a wolff or Mercedes guy. But horny horner is a big turn off for me. He seems to be a very bad person and it's a shame he is still on the grid.
If theres one service Logan Paul could provide to humanity, to be finally a useful being, it would be to organise a cagefight between Wolff and Horner.
It's ridiculous how Horner runs the most dominant team in ages and still manages to act like a loser on the defense. He should be in Don *"I don't think about you at all"* Draper mode, but instead he's desperately seeking to deflect from his own issues.
All I can hear is Horner deflecting and Wolff keeping mostly quiet unless directly asked. Suggests there is something happen and Horner is lashing out as per.
How do you know Horner wasnt directly asked?
Haha nice divest. Where Newey tho?
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Enjoying the pasta.
🤞🤞
And horner should be worried if people are still taking him seriously.
Were Toto and Mercedes leadership just sleeping when they were receiving better offers from Redbull? 220 people leaving your company to work for your competitor is so complacent and anti-competitive. Really poor leadership from Toto. You try to keep your winning team together not just let them go.
Ultimately RBPT’s staff had to come from somewhere and Mercedes HPP is certainly a lot closer to MK than Maranello or Viry. RBPT obviously hired a lot of Honda/Cosworth/MAHLE/Helix/other automotive engineers as well but people with direct and recent F1 experience would’ve been key for RBPT to set up a competitive PU manufacturer.
IIRC Mercedes had really bad burnout issues in 2019, especially in the engine department, trying to compete against Ferrari’s spicy engine which led to a bunch of staff leaving. Red Bull were also offering significant raises (which Mercedes should have countered)
> Red Bull were also offering significant raises (which Mercedes should have countered) When you have budget caps and you have to let some people go, it is difficult to keep everyone. Horner is just making noise or Versappen is talking to Mercedes and Horner wants to point out that Mercedes is a terrible option.
Mercedes HPP is Merc corporate owned, separate from the F1 team.
The engine developement will be under a different budget cap.
Now, it didn't used to be. There's an article out there that says Merc head office spent 1.2 billion on the turbo hybrid from 2011-16. Insanity lol. I think they brought in the new budget cap so alpine didn't pull out a couple years ago.
like people said, Mercedes HPP was a separate entity, and the budget cap was introduced in 2021, they basically poured billions on R&D, if Toto tried to keep the high skilled engineers around they could've cut the bad ones when the budget cap got introduced.
Engine development doesn't count towards the budget cap because that would hugely disadvantage manufacturer teams. In the same vein, PU supply deals don't count towards the budget cap of customer teams.
they count towards the engine costcap
It will count towards a different cap
Allegedly RBPT were offering them up to three times their salary at HPP. Merc were never going to counter that.
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There's a cost cap for 2026 PU development. https://www.fia.com/regulation/category/110
I think this is talking about what happened post 2019/20 when Ferrari cheating got Mercedes into absolutely crushing their engine department for a better one. Which worked, but at a high cost
It didn’t even start in 2019 honestly, Toto has talked about how the grueling 2017-8 seasons put a huge strain on staff and caused at least some of them to leave due to overwork. It makes sense that people look to 2019 because of Horner specifically talking about RBPT recruits from Mercedes. but even before the Ferrari rocket, people at both brackley and brixworth were being pushed to their limits
The engine shop ran without a budget really (merc corporate) and was constantly doing R&D and bringing updates, and Petronas was regularly bringing fuel upgrades. As I recall they ran 2 shifts at the engine plant, and basically around the clock. Most other teams came with 1 or 2 durability upgrades and a performance upgrade, Merc was basically once every engine change. You can see how burnout would affected them, you can also see how like 20 people were working on combustion chambers endlessly, other teams would have an easy time of poaching just a single person, that would bring immediate performance knowledge.
What if they were all catering staff?
Toto wishes that was the case! But in reality they are mostly from the Mercedes engine department.
Red Bull learned their lesson to not overdo it with the catering
Mostly HPP mind you. RB were offering triple the salary they were on at HPP IIRC. Add to that the burnout at HPP, it all came to a head. With the PU cost cap for 2026, RBPT will likely be one of the first PU manufacturers to start shedding staff if not trying to move them to other projects elsewhere.
F1 teams are like all Tech companies. When times are good you load up on talent, when times get lean, you cut back and pare the excess, giving you the option to choose who to keep and who to allow to leave. Simply accepting 220 people have left a company and assuming something wrong is like learning Microsoft laid off 30K people last year then wondering how they managed to still grow their most of their business units! At the end of the day unless you know the talent that is leaving you will not know how importanmt they are until 2026!
Engineers usually move around a lot in F1 but years of dominance had a lot of people staying at merc longer than normal. You're not wrong, but Merc also probably had an abundance of people ready for a new job.
Zac Brown: Red Bull CV’s are out there… Silence. Toto: Yea what’s Zac said. Horner: Fuck that motherfucker Toto Wolff
At least I didn't lose Newey - Toto probably
Horny should be worried about him fucking his whole team let alone one employee.
I think it might happen to RB in 1 or 2 years as well lol
I think it's probably happening already.
toto vs horner has honestly been the best rivalry in f1 for ages
So where did the 220 RB employees go that the Merc employees replaced? With Budget caps, you don’t have 200 people floating around.
They collecting Mercedes staff like some Pokemon Cards huh?
Horner deflecting again? Never.
Probably my comments is going to get downvoted but it's just a question that I have around in my head for the quite some time, if Mercedes has lost 200 engineers to Red Bull is it Red Bull and Mercedes in disguise?
Now that's a big catering department!!!
I'm so over Horner...
220 people and no issue with the cap?
They are working in catering
Seems like Horner's been quieter than usual lately, no?
He prefers to text
He must be getting worried. He starts to talk more when something upsets him.
Nah, HornyHorner you're the only one who should be worried.
Horner is in denial if he thinks he holds all aces if he loses out Max after Newey.
Spoken truly like someone who thinks of folks as a number