Christian Horner has accepted that his long-standing rivalry with Formula 1 counterpart Toto Wolff became ‘more like theatre’ - but still assured it was “authentic”.
Every F1 title between 2010 and 2023 was won by either Wolff’s Mercedes team or Horner’s Red Bull squad, which naturally caused them to be at loggerheads with each other.
This was often captured on Netflix hit Drive to Survive with one particular moment being their heated argument about porpoising at the start of the ground-effect regulations in 2022.
Horner liked to play the role of ‘pantomime villain’ but it’s all died down since his firing in July 2025, as replacement Laurent Mekies is a much more diplomatic individual.
“When the cameras first turned up it was very authentic,” Horner told Autosport. “Then you could feel as the seasons went on that there was considerably more male grooming and it became a little more theatre.
“But I always felt authentic to myself and, of course, these guys are making a TV show so they take hours and hours and hours of footage and it's all about how you edit something.
“You can either make somebody look like the villain or the hero or vice versa. That show has been incredibly successful because it suddenly lifted the lid on some of the rivalries, the personalities, the driver's personalities, some of the characters.”
Christian Horner
Photo by: Autosport
The rivalry between Horner and Wolff reached its peak in 2021 when Red Bull’s Max Verstappen bitterly fought Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton for the drivers’ title.
They collided on several occasions as Verstappen chased his maiden crown with Hamilton hunting for a record-breaking eighth, while the two teams also battled for the constructors’ title.
It ended in the contentious Abu Dhabi finale, where Verstappen dethroned Hamilton to give Red Bull its first drivers’ championship since 2013, while Mercedes took an eighth consecutive teams’ crown.
“Toto is a formidable competitor and Mercedes are a massive team,” added Horner. “The success that they've enjoyed and had, that's what made ‘21 even more important to us.
“But he's emotional, he's competitive, he's driven and we enjoyed a rivalry. I have huge respect for what he's done and achieved but I think in all sports you need to have rivalry.
“You can't all just be best friends all of the time, it's not true to the reality. Certainly that was a way of galvanising the team that Mercedes are the opposition.
“We have to try, as a subsidiary of an energy drinks company, to take them on and take the fight to them.”
Hamilton and Horner on the Abu Dhabi podium in 2021
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
Horner was insistent on F1 needing heated rivalries at the front as had happened in years gone by, whether it was Alain Prost versus Ayrton Senna or James Hunt versus Niki Lauda.
Rivalries ultimately play a part in selling tickets and grabbing headlines, likewise in football or cricket, and to Horner it is a natural consequence of teams chasing success.
“It's good to have rivalry, so long as it doesn't spill over into personal,” he said. “It's healthy in sport, whether you have Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho or Ferguson and Wenger.
“It galvanises sport and I think as well within a team, you've got to have a fire in your belly if you want to win.
“Formula 1 is one of the most competitive, hardest sports in the world and you're asking people to do extraordinary things and go to limits that have impact on their family lives and time at home and so on, because it is pretty unsociable.
“So you're galvanising your group that that is the competition and if you can find a weakness, then you can see that it permeates.”