Toto Wolff tells Christian Horner his ‘entitlement’ cost him his Red Bull job

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Toto Wolff’s rivalry with Christian Horner peaked at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix four years ago. Their superstar drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, entered the finale level on points.

The circumstances of Verstappen’s title win at Yas Marina are well-known, and a crestfallen Wolff was unhappy with Red Bull’s reaction.

Wolff says Horner should have shown sympathy for Hamilton, who lost the championship in bitterly controversial circumstances on the final lap.

It had been a bitter season, so perhaps the scarcity of sportsmanship wasn’t a surprise. At the British GP, Red Bull felt Hamilton took Verstappen out deliberately in an incident that briefly landed the Dutch driver in hospital.

Toto Wolff says Christian Horner’s ‘entitled’ attitude ‘bit him in the end’

In an interview with The Telegraph, Wolff clarified that Verstappen and Red Bull ‘deserved to be world champions’. The Dutch driver had lost points during the year through incidents that weren’t his fault, including a tyre failure in Azerbaijan.

But Wolff doubts that Horner would have been magnanimous in defeat. He says there would have been a barrage of ‘insults’ from the Red Bull camp.

‘Entitlement’ is apparently part of Horner’s ‘personality’, and that may have played a role in Red Bull’s decision to sack him back in July.

“He was never able to admit [that what happened in Abu Dhabi was wrong],” Wolff said.

“I try to look at it from the other side – and from their point of view, they deserved to be world champions, they had had some incidents that were unfair to them throughout the season, and the outcome of that race is a fair representation of the performance levels during the season.

“But Christian was never able to admit the same – that if it was the other way round and had happened to them that day, it would have been catastrophic, and he would have come up with all kinds of insults.

“And I think that the ability to be introspective or be able to see the other side with some compassion is a total gap in his personality.

“It’s the sense of entitlement he has. And that bit him in the end, because he felt entitled to all the power, and Red Bull didn’t want to give him that power.”

It’s been widely reported that Horner refused to relinquish any power, which may have saved his job. Replacement Laurent Mekies has taken on a smaller remit in a revised structure.

And yet, Toto Wolff thinks that F1 needs Christian Horner

Verstappen says Red Bull weren’t ‘functioning’ during Horner’s last 18 months or so in charge, even if they held on in the 2024 title race. He thinks that prompted the shareholders to make a change.

However, the world champion also feels F1 has become less ‘entertaining’ without Horner, who was involved in explosive feuds with Wolff and McLaren’s Zak Brown.

Even Wolff acknowledges that F1 needs a villain, and he thinks the ‘outspoken’ Horner fits the bill perfectly.

“Christian was one of those protagonists,” he said in a press conference in August. “He was outspoken, he was controversial, he was an a–, and he loved to play that role.

“You need an a——, people need to hate someone.”

Horner is expected to return to F1 and is eligible to do so from the spring, though he hasn’t yet found a suitable investment opportunity on the current grid. It may be that he sets his own team.