Guenther Steiner gives credit to Red Bull's Christian Horner for bouncing back from the 's**ttiest year' of his life

Former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner feels Red Bull boss Christian Horner does not get enough credit for guiding the team through what was the 's**ttiest year' of his life. The 2024 season was a turbulent one for the Austrian team. It all began with Horner being investigated for inappropriate behavior with a fellow employee.

Even though Red Bull's campaign began impressively on the track and had Max Verstappen dominating just like he did in 2023, behind closed doors it was still turbulent. On one side, Horner was battling with attacks on his personal side; on the other, there were attacks on the professional front.

The team was divided in the middle, with Helmut Marko and the Verstappen family on one side and Christian Horner on the other. As the year progressed, Red Bull also lost quite a few key personnel, with Adrian Newey leaving the squad, followed by Jonathan Wheatley. Through all of this, Max Verstappen was able to salvage his title run and win while the team couldn't do so in the Constructors Championship.

Talking to GPBlog, Guenther Steiner touched on how Red Bull boss Christian Horner deserves a lot of credit for keeping the team together through what he termed the 's**ttiest year' of his life. He said:

“I think you underestimated how hard the year was for Christian. I think he will remember the ’24 year as [the] pretty s**ttiest year of his life, you know, with all the stuff which happened, and so we have to give to him credit. He always stood up for it. You know, we don’t even talk about the beginning of the year, his private stuff, but then going into it, it’s pretty clear, they had that one driver in the team. They couldn’t defend the Constructors’ World Championship, because they had only one car."

He added:

“They were fighting a McLaren with two very good drivers. And I’m not saying that Checo [Perez] is not a good driver, but he wasn’t last year. We have to say that one. In the past he was a good driver, he won races, but last year, he underperformed. In the end, they were faced with dealing with it, but obviously it was a bad year keeping the team together."

Steiner backs Red Bull to continue to be competitive

With so many key signings leaving Red Bull, there were questions about what the team was potentially capable of, especially with Adrian Newey not part of the team anymore.

Steiner feels Red Bull should still be fine because it has built strong foundations over the years and they will help balance the loss of some of the key members. He said during the same interview:

“Obviously, they lost some people. They lost Adrian [Newey], they lost Jonathan [Wheatley], they’re going to lose the strategy engineer Will Courtenay, which are all very good people. And as much as Red Bull has got a good second line, these people are there a long time."

He added:

"They know the ins and outs, and sometimes having new blood in is good, but you need something – replacing an Adrian, it will be difficult. But only time will tell what Christian can make out of it, but I think it is not getting any easier for him in the moment.”

Red Bull finished the 2024 F1 season third in the Championship, and much of it was the result of a lack of results from Sergio Perez. It will be interesting to see what his replacement, Liam Lawson, is capable of doing when he gets the opportunity.