Guenther Steiner issues warning to Christian Horner over ‘cyclical’ Red Bull staff changes

Guenther Steiner believes that while Red Bull’s staff changes are “more than normal”, Christian Horner will be able to build his team back up to winning ways.

Red Bull ‘s tumultuous F1 2024 has seen the team’s dominance fade, to the point where the Milton Keynes-based squad faces a stern challenge to land either title this season.

Guenther Steiner: When you’re not winning, you’re vulnerable

Red Bull’s RB20 slipped off the boil during this season, going from winning races with ease to now being quite satisfied with podium finishes as McLaren have moved into the lead of the Constructors’ Championship with the faster car.

While Max Verstappen still enjoys a 52-point lead in the Drivers’ Championship, Lando Norris’ form with six race weekends to go suggests the Dutch driver will have a very tense end to the season in his bid to secure a fourth consecutive title.

It’s been a year of two halves for Red Bull, with the team’s on-track form coinciding with the timing of several high-profile exits from the squad.

Chief technical officer Adrian Newey will leave for Aston Martin in early 2025, strategy chief Will Courtenay will switch to McLaren, and long-serving sporting director Jonathan Wheatley has taken up an opportunity to become a team boss at Audi F1 when he leaves after this season.

High-level staff like technical director Pierre Waché, aero head Enrico Balbo chief engineer Paul Monaghan and Ben Waterhouse, and the newly promoted GianPiero Lambiase have all remained loyal to Horner’s squad with new contracts.

Speaking on the Red Flags podcast, former Haas F1 team boss and Horner’s grid rival Guenther Steiner said it’s evident Red Bull is going through a transitionary phase.

“It’s [staff rotation] a little bit more than normal, because you just need to go back to the last years,” he said.

“How many people were leaving there? Nobody, no one was leaving in the last 10 years.

“All of a sudden this year, they’re leaving left, right, and centre.

“Jonathan Wheatley, Adrian, Will… who else? There’s a long list of people who are leaving, so that didn’t happen before.

“But it’s also cyclical, like people who have been there a long time and one is leaving, the other one says, ‘Oh, that would be a good move for me as well’.

“‘Obviously, we are not at our strongest moment right now, so let’s get out of here while I’m still worth a lot of money because I was in the best team or the best team in the last five years’.

“You’ve got the value – if you wait too long and the team is not as strong anymore, your value goes down.”

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Despite the losses, Steiner pointed to the wealth of talented engineers – such as the aforementioned above – who have remained, and says these could end up being even stronger than those who have departed.

“I think a lot of the engineers are still there. It’s good people there,” he said.

“Pierre Waché, the technical director, he’s very good, he’s still there. So they will build up again with the younger talent they have got in there.

“What it is, when you are like this, it gives opportunities to the people who otherwise would go, and you never give them the opportunity internally.

“Now, with people leaving on top, there is the next people coming in, and they could be as good as the people leaving, or even better.

“You just don’t know. You need to find out. But I think they are such a strong team that they can fill a lot of the jobs from within.”

But with Red Bull going through a period of change off track, Steiner said Horner could find his own position coming under pressure if the on-track results don’t turn around in the medium term.

“Absolutely. When you are winning, whatever you do, you are okay,” he said, when asked if support from within might wane if the performance doesn’t return in 2025.

“Once you start not winning, you get vulnerable. Your bulletproof jacket is getting thinner and thinner. More and more bullets are shot and, at some stage, obviously, defending yourself is difficult.

“Christian is working to get back to the form at the very beginning of the year to win and then, again, he’s safe.”

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