Christian Horner

It finally becomes official - I think we already knew this particular story was true though!

Interesting to see confirmation it is in relation to Horner's behaviour. Again, that's something we all knew but it's quite significant to see that in an article that relates to a Red Bull statement about his departure.

I'll await Newey's own statement about his departure, I wonder if he'll be discrete or use it to air some frustrations. Probably the former but we'll soon see what he has to say..

While it's a wholly fabricated number the $2.6 is for 100% of the equity? So you'd need half that, most of which would be debt loaded on to SPV, potentially staged buyouts to help RB from being dicks and not much capital needed at all. And that capital would get paid back quite quickly via a further issue to externals and another debt issue.

Buying isn't the issue but the easy bit.

Aston Martin ended up paying junk 15% rates on a massive tranche of emergency borrowing because they'd asset stripped the cash far too quickly and comprehensively failed to increase the revenues to finance the existing debt obligations so you can see first hand what happens when it goes wrong but if taking on an F1 team today you'd probably focus on what it could be used to flog to punters from loading it with celebs to get media cash to selling hats that make special people not just look but feel special.

I share your surprise. I was convinced that if he survived the initial weekend when all this blew up, he'd last the season. With Newey's departure, questions about Max's future are inevitable - Now I'm not so sure Horner will remain in place after the summer break.

I'm being a bit pedantic perhaps but where is it *confirmed* in that article that Horner is the reason he's leaving. The Beeb are saying "[he] told Red Bull last week he wanted to leave in the wake of the controversy involving allegations about team principal Christian Horner", but that's not confirmation - that's just reiterating the line they've held on this from the start.

There is nothing in Newey's statement alluding to Horner, so I don't know where this official confirmation is? Is it simply the case that if a source repeats the same unsubstantiated conjecture multiple times then it's confirmed?

(To be clear - it is quite possible - and on the balance of probabilities likely - that the Horner stuff IS the principal reason he's leaving, but strictly speaking this has not been confirmed anywhere that I can see. "Sources say" doesn't mean st)

I would normally agree with you. "In the wake of..." is a press trick to tie one story to another.

But everything surrounding this story so far, all the rumours and press hinting desperately at what's going on without technically making statements of fact, all suggest that everyone with their ear to the ground knows exactly what's playing out, and why - and it's for the obvious reasons.

There is clearly a power struggle, which lead to someone leaking the dirt on Horner to try and get rid of him. That power struggle must have impacted Newey in some way, as it concerns two people that he has a relationship with. The fact that the leak concerning Horner relates to a woman that was his/shared PA too isn't exactly going to be comfortable for him to live with, especially with Horner remaining in his professional life in F1.

And all that set against the backdrop of Newey delivering probably his finest F1 car to date which is winning every week? He should be on cloud 9 right now, but he's not, he's leaving the team. He's obviously really not happy and I think it's pretty easy to see why, even though we don't know all the ins and outs (no pun..)

Craig Slater, last night, stated AD had been thinking about leaving (for internal political reasons) for some time and was only persuaded to re-sign by CH. The attack on CH, the factionalism etc seems to have been the final straw.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roPaHcPeBWw

This whole thread is incredibly biased, but wasn't aware Craig Slater was biased - he seems kinda normal.

No team stays at the top for ever.

Losing Newey has been proven a good way to make it happen at least.

possible his reporting doesn't concur with your bias?