Christian Horner wants more “power” and “control” as Toto Wolff rivalry explained

Sky Sports F1 commentator David Croft believes the rivalry between Christian Horner and Toto Wolff stems from the difference in “control” and “power” within their respective teams.

Horner and Wolff’s rivalry stretches back to 2021 when Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton went head-to-head for the world championship.

The pair have recently exchanged a war of words following the Chinese Grand Prix when talking about Verstappen’s future at Red Bull.

Wolff claimed that there are “factors” which could result in Verstappen’s eventual departure, while Horner hit back, stating that the Austrian should place more focus on improving Mercedes on-track performance, not their driver line-up.

On the latest episode of the Sky Sports F1 podcast, Croft assessed the dynamic between Wolff and Horner.

Sky’s lead commentator suggested that Horner wishes he had more control of Red Bull, like Wolff does at Mercedes.

“I think Christian and Toto will carry on the war of words for their entirety of their time in Formula 1,” said Croft. “It will just carry on. They’ve got a history, they’ve got a present and I think they’ve got a future when it comes to not agreeing with certain things.

“Toto is doing everything that you would expect one of your rivals to do and if your driver is making it public that he might leave, he’s going to put his arm around him, he’s going to tell him that he’s the most important person on the planet and ‘come over to us, the grass is much greener at Brackley than it is at Milton Keynes’.

“The one thing that I think is always going to wind Christian up a little bit as well is that for all the success at Red Bull, for all the titles, the trophies, the race wins that they’re enjoying at the moment, Toto Wolff is a co-owner of a Formula 1 team and Christian Horner isn’t.”

Horner is currently CEO of the Red Bull F1 team, while Wolff is one-third owner of Mercedes AMG.

Croft is adamant a lot of the “animosity” stems from that fact.

“And I don’t think that goes down very well with Christian. I think if you said to him, ‘Would you like to be a co-owner of that Red Bull team?’ Of course he would. He wants control. He wants power and Toto’s got that because he is a one-third owner of Mercedes,” he added.

“And Christian Horner, he might be a CEO and he might be a team principal, but he’s a paid employee of the Red Bull Formula 1 team, so he hasn’t got that autonomy to make decisions in the way that Toto has and I think a lot of the animosity on Christian’s side maybe stems from that. But I think Toto also knows how to wind Christian up as well.”