The Christian Horner scandal is not the first time Red Bull have been in the offseason headlines – in recent weeks McLaren’s Zak Brown has been openly critical of the team.
That is because of their close ties with sister team Racing Bulls. Brown wants the F1 rules and regulations tweaked to ensure constructors are more independent.
But Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has come out in defence of the Silver Arrows’ title rivals.
He said: “I think there is a legacy situation with Red Bull that the sport owes them a lot. They have two teams, they finance them.
“They have a great junior program, a track and lots of brand value, and so they’re not like any other smaller team. So I think on the shareholder level, it’s quite a difficult discussion based on that contribution.
“What we need to look at is the regulations – are the regulations robust enough? Are they policed well enough for us to be in a safe place or are we seeing some potential loopholes and what is it we need for 2026?
“That is the main question – define regulations that make everyone comfortable with the situation from the small teams that use such collaboration like Haas, it’s going to be very difficult for them to stand on their own feet, to the teams that have no relationships to the big teams, all the way on the other end that have joined shareholding and same locations.
“I believe that is the thing we need to be tackling, that everybody is fine with the situation.”
