Horner hailed for juggling ‘loose cannon’ within Red Bull F1 team

The often outspoken Marko caused controversy with comments he made about Sergio Perez where he attributed the driver’s inconsistent form in 2023 to his ethnicity. The 80-year-old Austrian issued an apology for his comments which was accepted by Perez. 

Sky F1’s pitlane reporter Ted Kravitz has hailed how Horner managed a team of big personalities, including Marko, who he labelled as a “loose cannon.” 

“It’s a bit complicated when it comes to who’s around and above Christian Horner at Red Bull,” Kravitz told the Sky F1 Podcast. 

“And I think the only way you could mark down Christian Horner is for the way the Sergio Perez situation was dealt with and the way that he was not able to control Helmut Marko.

“Now Helmut Marko is uncontrollable, he’s an uncontrollable force but Marko’s unacceptable comments about Sergio Perez were not very quickly jumped on because he can’t.

“In a way, this is the genius of what Horner has managed to achieve at Red Bull Racing because say what you want about Christian Horner but he is juggling some situations, some hot stones, that you have no idea how difficult they are.

“He is jugging some component and volatile parts. Max Verstappen who could be shown that when the car isn’t to his liking is very vocal about it and can have a short fuse on the radio with GP his engineer, we know that.

“He’s juggling Helmut Marko who’s the definition of a loose cannon, he’s juggling Oliver Mintzlaff his new boss at Red Bull Racing who’s finding his way in charge of the racing programme.

“He’s jugging Sergio Perez and getting Checo back to what they want to do and he’s juggling everything else, the political side of Formula 1. So, he’s doing an amazing job.”

Marko has reportedly signed a new three-year deal with Red Bull.