Horner to Ferrari !

If nothing else, Horner recently proved he isn't that great at high-stakes politics. even if he was in the past. He lost in spectacular fashion. But some how he's going to succeed at Ferrari because politics isn't an issue there?

 

F1 is going to move rapidly away from him and he knows it. Why would any rational board give him shares/ownership and expand their costs/dilute their shares??? lol. He was being paid 10mil per year at RedBull. Your only as good as your last race/job. He failed and destroyed a winning organization that lost its core technical, strategic and design leadership. Baggage.

All of his own doing. His board wasted no time in firing him and paying him off not to be around anymore. He had to pay an employee he was sexy texting £3 million to settle lol. Yep Ferrari or any other team need that around. Its way too soon.

There are press articles asking does F1 need Horner. No it doesnt. He was an employee. Something he forgot apparently.

 

Don’t want to be rude but this is not true.
Red Bull’s car is again based on what Newey did since 2022 and with the technical organisation decided by Horner for years.
Very similar with 2007-2008 last Ferrari titles based on Todt/Brawn organisation without them inside the team.

 

Unless Horner can commit to really taking Ferrari under his wings like Jean Todt did, nothing will work, unfortunately.

 

Assuming 2026 is (yet another) failure, Ferrari will be championshipless until at least the NEXT rule set.

They'll have lost Leclerc. Lewis will definitely not stick around either.

So assuming the above, 2027 Ferrari HAS to go on a hiring spree. Make a ludicrous offer to Max for 2029. Hire ALL the people he demands. Don't say no. Do as he says. Assuming new rules at latest 2029, they can start with a banger. Even a car a couple of tenths off the pace, Max will challenge, a driver that gives 100% all the time the team will rally behind.

 

I would go for Horny..thy guy knows how to run a team....Elton would run like a scared rabbit, so it's a win win situation...junt don't give him the phone number of any of the girls in the team....

 

The press are still milking this:

https://www.crash.net/f1/news/1083974/1/christian-horner-again-linked-ferrari-f1-move-share-prices-plummet?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwY2xjawNaISxleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETBEcGgxN0ZmMUFNRlM1UFNDAR5_xqmoPYIUuHTdL7w8uJphpRfLveblOm4ELdnd1MrfH0Ugx2ox7Y4z9Ztd9g_aem_HuDoPFMrcq259RTQN0OkPA#Echobox=1760347923

 

Unfortunately it may be too late to change the 2026 car, it will be in the top 5 but not close enough, but i think you are vastly over estimating the MV effect. He would get swallowed up like every other driver / engineer attempting to change the team for the better. Many illustrious people have tried, failed and walked away. Those that did suceed (Schumacher years) were thrown out and LDM shoulders that blame for that party.

 

I think Horner is a requirement to retain one of the current drivers (and hasten the departure of another who in my view should not have been hired to begin with) and unfortunately it has become clear that Fred is unable to get the best out of the team.

Change is required.

 

If you look at this post Max/RBR have scored the most points since Belgium. Max is not mathematically eliminated from WDC yet.

 

Max does better with worse packages and is far more consistent. Leclerc remains complacent aside from his increasingly public moaning (which is entirely justified), BUT, he doesn't seem to make any effort to actually change anything. Even from things totally within his power. Lewis writes the occasional letter which is about as useful as pissing into the hoover dam in an effort to raise the water level.

Max IMO would bring people he trusts into the team and with significant steps made forward the rest of the team will be far more motivated and a direction will be followed.

 

Everybody says Max would do this and would do that.

Max has always been at the same team under the wing of Papa Jos and Papa Helmut. Who knows what he could do and what not.

 

+1 - Max yes talented. Human yes. No one knows what his capability is in any car until he drives it with race spec pirelli tires, not the TPC(Testing of previous cars), model tires that are not race spec. Also testing and TPC does not yield race data, but pace data with TPC car/tires. Antonelli was constantly promoted as Max-esque in the TPC car regime. That is clearly not the case.

Any real results would require him, Max, to move teams into a completely different car. LH finally did that and he has had alot of work to do lol.

 

With all due respect, I guess the Nordschleife was a fluke then?

 

Exactly.

Sainz Jr FAR more experience than Max and got obliterated.
Ricciardo far more experience than Max and year 1 - 2 the difference was fractional. Year 3 Max reduced the mistakes after Monaco and Ricciardo was never seen again.
Gasly was seen as someone to rival Max. He was 1 second a lap slower
Albon was seen as a great replacement for Gasly. Zero difference with Gasly.
Perez, people said that the Verstappens where actively working to NOT have him in the 2nd seat. Result? He went from ''king of the midfield teams'' to ''get this f'in guy out of F1", so much so that even the Mexicans didn't give a flying F anymore when he had his awful last Mexican GP.
Lawson came in, again only because supposedly the much improved Tsunoda was being blocked by the Verstappens. Well Tsunoda got there anyways and he's the joke of the field and once again, those claiming he was blocked by the Verstappens are going back to the old rethoric of ''Car build around Max, Tsunoda has always been bad" bla bla bla.


Speaking of car build for Max...I suppose he also designed the Ferrari 296 GT3. The same class he had a bunch of extremely quick GT3 drivers that practically live on the 'ring say he was driving in a different spec because he made them look a bit silly...well they shut up rather quick when Max laid out the facts and in the hobby race he did there against former 24hr of 'ring champions.

Everyone with a brain inside of F1 says the same thing about Max...if you want to win, you get him.

 

With all due respect to the other drivers, Sato and Giovinazzi were succesful outside of F1.

Yet, I'm not talking about his capabilities to drive but about if he'd able to move people to other teams and convince his new bosses to put them in charge. Is Verstappen a political animal? I don't know, he's always been in a controled enviroment.

 

I beg to differ.

 

[brakeboosted]

According to my source, discussions have indeed taken place between Ferrari and Christian Horner. However, some hesitation remains on Horner's side, as he views Ferrari as something of a “poisoned chalice”. The team's reputation for rapid turnover at the top has made this decision one that demands consideration.

It's understood that Ferrari's proposal includes a potential public equity incentive and the flexibility for Horner to remain based in the UK. An arrangement designed to make the role more appealing.

Internally, Ferrari is also weighing two possible organizational paths. One would see a reshuffle in which Fred Vasseur transitions into another division rather than being dismissed outright, similar to what happened with Mike Krack at AMR. There's inherent risk that such a move could lead to tensions, which is a fairly common occurrence in F1. This would unsurprisingly lead to Fred's resignation, given some decision-making power would be striped from him in this case. Whether d'Ambrosio is the direct successor to Vasseur in this instance wasn't mentioned.

The alternative would involve a dual leadership model, inspired by McLaren's Brown-Stella dynamic. In this scenario, Horner would act as a liaison between Scuderia Ferrari and Ferrari SpA. Christian would be handling corporate relations of Scuderia Ferrari, a very similar role to Zak Brown.

What follows is my own opinion, not connected to any paddock rumours.

It seems Ferrari are doing everything possible to keep Fred in the picture even with the potential arrival of Horner. Both drivers have expressed full support for him, and that loyalty carries weight in the negotiations. Ferrari needs to tread carefully because removing someone that is entrusted by the drivers could result in something more significant. That is why I think fitting Horner and Vasseur into the team is their priority. Whether it ends with both in the team, this will never be certain, and in my opinion unlikely.

That said, there are personal hurdles for Horner to clear. As mentioned by my source, Ferrari's internal environment is volatile, many key figures have denied offers from Maranello for this exact reason. Whether we like it or not, Scuderia Ferrari is very tightly knitted to the car company's brand value. So, it might also be true that signing Horner is a bid at boosting their stock prices by regaining the trust of investors. Obviously, given this is the intention this is a very short terministic approach, which I guess is not totally off brand. There is also the risk of having two strong personalities working alongside each other that might be counterproductive in this regard.

How this would work on a financial level, I'm unsure. Perhaps if Christian is added to the Ferrari board instead of the racing team his salary would be excluded from the cap, and this would keep their current top 3 earners excluded as well. The next option in this regard is to potentially label him as a consultant, but as I previously mentioned, what exactly this entails I really don't know.

This is the information I have, and I am sharing, whether you choose to believe it or not is entirely at your discretion. I personally don't think anything conclusive has been achieved yet, I think negotiations might still be at a very early stage.