£38bn F1 team are ‘offering double pay’ to poach staff and Red Bull are in their sights

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Red Bull could be facing an exodus after long-serving team principal Christian Horner left the team. Horner formed many strong allegiances over his 20-year term at Milton Keynes.

Official documents indicate that Horner’s enforced departure from Red Bull has now been finalised. He has been in negotiations with the ownership over a settlement package because his previous deal ran until 2030.

A report last month revealed that Red Bull feared a personnel ‘haemorrhage’ if Horner joined another F1 team. Initial speculation has tied him to Cadillac and Alpine.

It has since emerged that a number of Red Bull staff had Horner clauses in their contracts, enabling them to follow the team boss out the door. Thus, it is important for the new regime, led by Laurent Mekies, to tie down the most important employees after several high-profile exits.

Cadillac are offering staff from new F1 rivals double pay

One team who have been in the midst of a particularly aggressive recruitment drive are Cadillac. It’s essential that they fill out their ranks as soon as possible as their first test in late January creeps closer.

One British outlet has already revealed that Red Bull are ‘vulnerable’ to Cadillac’s advances. The £38bn US brand possess enormous financial clout.

Indeed, veteran journalist Roger Benoit has learned from a top source that Cadillac are offering to double the salary of staff up and down the F1 grid. Red Bull’s Milton Keynes factory could be a particularly fruitful ground.

Driver salaries, as well as the earnings of the three-highest paid off-track staff, are exempt from the cost cap. But as Benoit says, Cadillac will still have to be wary.

“A team leader told me something interesting,” he told Motorsport-Magazin Talk. “They are currently visiting all teams, asking all engineers and technicians [to join them] and offering double pay. So someone gets 100 thousand dollars at one team, and they say, ‘With us, you get 200 thousand’.

“Of course, that’s not good in the long run, is it?’ And so, they bring people into the team, but they will improve if they implement a personnel policy that is understandable. That’s not the case at the moment.”

Cadillac unhappy with recent rumours about their F1 driver line-up

Team principal Graeme Lowdon says Cadillac are unlikely to sign an active driver for 2026. They’ve taken the opposite approach in recruiting the aforementioned ‘engineers and technicians’.

The consensus is that Cadillac will field Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas for their maiden season. The former is a free agent after leaving Red Bull, while the latter has been supporting Mercedes as reserve driver.

It was even claimed this week that they had reached an agreement with Perez, finally filling one of their seats. But the process hasn’t yet concluded.

In fact, Cadillac are ‘sighing’ at the Perez reports, which indicates there’s still some degree of doubt. Lowdon has repeatedly said that drivers aren’t a priority; the quiet nature of this year’s market means they can afford to wait without losing out on targets.