Christian Horner reckons the soon-to-be Formula 1 world champion Kimi Antonelli has ‘earned’ his right to become the outright number-one driver at Mercedes after a dominant 2026.
The 20-year-old holds a 102-point lead over team-mate George Russell in second with six rounds remaining this season, so he can clinch the title in Austin next time out.
Antonelli has achieved this in only his second year of F1 and thanks to 14 podiums including eight wins, while he has had the upper hand on Russell who entered 2026 as the title favourite.
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So Horner thinks Antonelli is the man to lead the dominant Mercedes forwards if another squad becomes a threat, amid an ongoing debate over whether teams should prioritise a driver.
Horner’s Red Bull outfit was often in favour of this during his time as team boss from 2005 to 2025, first with Sebastian Vettel and then Max Verstappen - both of whom won four world titles each.
McLaren, for example, had a contrasting approach last year with Oscar Piastri and eventual champion Lando Norris, who were given equal treatment but almost beaten by Verstappen.
Or, as referred to by Horner, in 1986 when Williams produced the constructors’ title-winning FW11 for Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet, who lost the drivers’ crown to McLaren’s Alain Prost.
Mansell's hopes of winning the 1986 title dramatically ended with an exploding tyre at the Australia finale
“It's very hard to keep everybody happy all the time,” Horner told Autosport. “You’ve just got to be honest and with the principles of ‘okay, what are the objectives here’.
“At the end of the day, the team is what comes first and the drivers are ultimately contractors. To promise both drivers that you can be able to win a world championship is unrealistic.
“Ultimately there will be one driver that achieves superiority on track and they're both given the same chance, they're both given the same equipment, but you earn the respect and a status within a team by what you do on a track.
“It’s like Kimi Antonelli at the moment. He's earning that position in that team by what he's doing on circuit and if there came to a tight fight between him and a rival from another team, the team would have to take a stance.
“Otherwise they risk losing a championship in the way that Williams potentially did with Mansell and Piquet against Prost all those years ago. So it's just how you set your stall out to go racing.”
The motivation behind Red Bull always picking a number one perhaps stemmed from 2010 when Vettel and team-mate Mark Webber often collided while vying for the title.
It almost led to Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso clinching that championship, but then from 2011 Vettel asserted dominance over Webber with Verstappen doing similar over his various team-mates.
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“What it taught me in the early days, we were a young team, we just started winning and then all the pressures that go with winning and the expectations suddenly rise,” added Horner.
“The media scrutiny and the spotlight is on you, everything is being analysed to the nth degree and you've just got to stick to your principles.
“You can't keep everybody happy all of the time and it's doing what is best for the team.
"That's what my job was, I was employed to do the best for Red Bull Racing which meant winning.”
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