Warning for Verstappen: 'Red Bull revival will take a very long time'
F1 News
Mark Blundell, former F1 driver believes Christian Horner is the ideal man to rebuild Red Bull but warns Max Verstappen that it will take a long time to do so. Red Bull recently lost their lead in the Constructors' World Championship for the first time since the Spanish Grand Prix in 2022. Verstappen faces strong competition from Lando Norris, but the Dutchman leads by 52-points with six weekends remaining.
Jos Verstappen has doubted whether Horner is the right man to lead the team forward, but Blundell believes Horner has what it takes. Speaking to British tabloid Express, Blundell says: "I think, actually, I think it's time for Christian Horner to use all of his ability and his depth of knowledge now to put together a Grand Prix-winning team again. And so much of that is personnel-led. So it's got to be, who is the next Adrian Newey? Who's going to replace Newey in those years to come to design Grand Prix-winning cars and be a consistent guy, or girl, to put that on pen to paper, so to speak."
'Red Bull must be patient'
Blundell believes that reversing the downward spiral and finding the way up is always extremely difficult. "But it takes time to get everything put in place, I don't think it'd be an overnight sort of change with Red Bull to get back to the heady days that they've expected and believe that should be there all the time. But it's achievable."
In any case, Horner has already started restructuring the team. For example, Gianpiero Lambiase has been promoted to Head of Racing, while Hannah Schmitz is about to be officially appointed Head of Race Strategy.
This article has been created in collaboration with Ludo van Denderen