Christian Horner insists he's staying at Red Bull after rival boss' sack claim

Christian Horner has insisted he is staying on at Red Bull after a rival team boss rang him on the morning of the Austrian GP claiming he was going to lose his job.

Red Bull are enduring their worst season since 2008 and are yet to finish on the podium - a feat they have achieved every year bar one since entering the sport in 2005. 

According to The Times, ‘a rival team principal even rang Horner on Sunday morning before the grand prix to commiserate, claiming that Gerhard Berger was in the frame to take over’.

Berger has been making regular appearances in the paddock this season and in Austria wore Red Bull team wear, even sitting on the pitwall. The former McLaren and Ferrari driver is close to compatriot and Red Bull founder Mateschitz and owned a 50 per cent stake in sister-squad Toro Rosso between 2006 and 2008.

“I was shocked. I had no idea people were talking about me that way,” Horner told The Times. “I have a long contract with the team. It is difficult, but I had dinner with Dietrich on Saturday evening and we still get along very well. We know we have problems, but we just have to work through them and I am here to do that job.”

Red Bull have declined to comment on the rumours. 

Horner led the team to four consecutive championship doubles and most of Red Bull’s struggles this season have been attributed to the Renault engine, meaning he is unlikely to be the fall guy.

The Red Bull team principal has been vocal in his calls for change to the regulations, but his views have been dismissed by some who claim he had no problem with his own team dominating. However, Horner says the Milton Keynes-based squad have always been against the move to V6 hybrids.

“Red Bull were one of the teams that opposed the current engine regulations, there were a couple of teams that opposed it, because we didn’t believe it was the right direction then for the sport to be heading in,” he told reporters in Austria.

“Unfortunately when you let a group of engineers with no clear directive about costs or what the product needs to be, are going to come up with a set of regulations of course they are going to come up with something highly complex and highly sophisticated.”

Mateschitz has threatened to pull his backing from the sport, something that could lead to four cars dropping off the grid, and Horner believes the comments should be taken seriously.

“Dietrich Mateschitz doesn’t talk on the record that often and everything he has said is words that I have heard from him so far this year.” Horner said.

“There is nothing to interpret in what he says because he is telling what he thinks and that is how he sees it. He is ultimately a fan and that is why he has committed so much of Red Bull’s marketing activities to Formula 1, not just with Red Bull Racing but with Sauber and young driver programmes over the last 20 years. I think the risk for Formula 1 is when someone like Dietrich starts to fall out of love with it then that is a big worry because we need people like Dietrich to be engaged.

“The problem is at some point, he runs a multi-national company, Red Bull does not exist because of Formula 1, it is not like Williams, it is not like McLaren and if Formula 1 is not generating the return and the coverage for him then of course he is going to race questions about that and I think that is his concern about the sport generally at the moment. In addition to that is the situation regarding regulations and his two teams.”