McLaren boss Zak Brown believes Christian Horner\u2019s success and rising F1 fame caused him to \u201cchange\u201d as a person, reigniting his long-running feud with the former Red Bull team principal.<\/p>\n
Brown reflected on his relationship with Horner, saying that \u201cwe used to get on\u201d before tensions began to escalate.<\/p>\n
Horner, who left Red Bull earlier this year, is widely regarded as one of the sport\u2019s most successful team principals.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Over two decades, he led the team to multiple world titles with Sebastian Vettel<\/a> and later with Max Verstappen<\/a>.<\/p>\n McLaren\u2019s resurgence under Brown\u2019s leadership meant the pair clashed on several occasions, most notably following Red Bull\u2019s 2021 cost cap breach.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n In an interview with\u00a0The Telegraph, Brown claimed Horner had changed as his success – and public profile – grew.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve known Christian for 30-plus years,\u201d Brown said. \u201cWe used to get on. His results are amazing.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, hats off. But he\u2019s changed. I think the Drive to Survive fame, the money, the glory, all got a bit much.\u201d<\/p>\n Horner\u2019s McLaren allegations<\/p>\n McLaren\u2019s dominant start to the 2025 F1 season led to an allegation from Red Bull, who suggested the team were injecting water into their tyres to cool them and gain an unfair advantage.<\/p>\n McLaren\u2019s primary strength over rivals has typically come in hotter conditions, where tyre wear is more severe.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n After the season-opener in Australia, Horner highlighted McLaren’s impressive tyre preservation.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s different to everybody, yes, and what\u2019s quite strange is that they enjoy great warm-up, but also very low degradation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cUsually one comes at the expense of the other. So, they certainly at this circuit seem to have mastered that.\u201d<\/p>\n Brown remains unhappy with Horner\u2019s claim.<\/p>\n \u201cAt times, no. Back when I was racing, there were drivers who raced hard and squeezed competitors\u2019 cars two wheels off the track. That\u2019s OK,\u201d Brown added.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cBut other drivers squeeze you four wheels off the track. That\u2019s not OK. I\u2019m a two-wheels-off guy. Christian is a four-wheels-off guy.<\/p>\n \u201cHe made allegations towards our team. I can\u2019t imagine he believed them. It was simply intended to disrupt us.<\/p>\n \u201cRegardless of legality, everyone in the sport knows you wouldn\u2019t do that for technical reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n Horner\u2019s next move in F1 remains unclear, with the 50-year-old linked to potential roles at Alpine and Ferrari. Aston Martin, Haas and Williams have all ruled out an approach.<\/p>\n Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren boss Zak Brown believes Christian Horner\u2019s success and rising F1 fame caused him to \u201cchange\u201d as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,817,913,806,805,803,804,946,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-293079","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-mclaren","12":"tag-motor","13":"tag-motor-sports","14":"tag-motosport","15":"tag-motosports","16":"tag-red-bull-racing","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}