David Croft disagrees with Ted Kravitz after naming 50-year-old as team principal of the year

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Sky Sports pundits David Croft and Ted Kravitz have disagreed over whether Red Bull’s Christian Horner was the best F1 team principal during the 2023 season.

Red Bull were simply unstoppable last year and with no major rule changes coming until 2026, that domination could continue for some time.

However, speaking on the Sky Sports F1 Podcast, David Croft and Ted Kravitz were unsure whether he was the best team boss of the year.

If there’s one thing you can always guarantee from Red Bull every season, it’s big talking points off the track within the team.

They only gave Nyck de Vries 10 races in the sister AlphaTauri car before replacing him with reserve driver Daniel Ricciardo.

The Australian now has a shot of replacing Sergio Perez when his contract runs out at the end of the year.

Perez was the subject of some very harsh criticism from Helmut Marko throughout the year as he struggled to keep up with Max Verstappen.

The Dutchman was unstoppable and even in the same machinery, Perez failed to keep up with his performances in qualifying regularly letting him down.

Ted Kravitz still believes Horner was the best team principal on the grid, but David Croft believes his inability to adequately deal with those off-track issues means the award should go elsewhere.

Horner’s hands are somewhat tied due to the structure of the Red Bull team and the people above him within the company.

He also has a huge decision on the horizon to make when it comes to deciding Verstappen’s next teammate if they let Perez go.

Croft and Kravitz disagree over Horner

Speaking about the 50-year-old, Kravitz said: “I’m sure if Christian Horner could do this year again, I’m sure he’d say to Helmut [Marko] or maybe he’d say to himself, do you know what, I think we can give Checo [Perez] a bit of a break here.

“We don’t need to be mean to him, it’s not the stick, he doesn’t respond well to the stick, let’s give him more of the carrot and that’s the only way I marked him down.

“But clearly, he’s still the team boss of the year, no question.”

Croft disagreed and replied: “See I think that’s where I would slightly disagree, he’s not team boss of the year.

“If you’re looking at the Helmut Marko situation and marking him down because what Christian tried to do behind the scenes was very much the right thing but he didn’t have the power to say to the brand and overturn what the brand wanted in terms of putting out statements.

“When a statement needed to be coming from the team straight away and at that stage Christian had his hands tied a little bit.”

Whether or not Croft and Kravitz agree that Horner was the best team principal, it’s impossible to argue with the team’s results.

No team has ever been as dominant as Red Bull were in 2023 and much of that is down to how Horner has managed the entire team’s operations.

He also has a powertrains operation to oversee when they start to manufacture their own engines heading into 2026.

Horner has already admitted that his biggest challenge since joining Red Bull, but if he can nail that, then the team could be at the very top of their sport for a long time.