"I think he's blocked on my phone": Red Bull boss Christian Horner's cheeky dig at Mercedes boss Toto Wolff

Red Bull Christian Horner recently took a dig at Mercedes boss Toto Wolff as he said that he's blocked the Austrian's number on his phone. The two personalities have had a tense relationship with each other over the last few years. It originated during the turbo-hybrid era as Mercedes displaced Red Bull to become the leading force in F1 in 2014.

While there were jabs thrown here and there by both squads over the years, the rivalry reached its peak in 2021 when Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton faced each other for the title battle. As the battle between the two drivers intensified, so did the tensions between both camps.

With neither Horner nor Wolff ready to back down, the rivalry between Mercedes and Red Bull continued to grow and ended with Max Verstappen winning the title at the end of the season. With the Austrian team winning comfortably over the last two years, the tensions have dissipated to an extent.

In a recent appearance on the 'Pardon my take' podcast, Horner was questioned about his relationship with Wolff, to which he joked,

“I think he’s blocked [on my phone]. It’s fine. I mean, look, there’s healthy competition, and it’s good to have rivalry in sport. They did a lot of winning, they’re a great team, and now we’re doing our thing and we’re tending not to look behind and looking forward."

Delving deeper into it, Horner said that it was not about Wolff, but it's always nice to have rivalries within the sport. It keeps things interesting. He said,

“It’s not really about Toto. It’s about Ferrari, about Aston Martin. And he’s no doubt got his challenges, so I’ll let him focus on those. It’s boring if everybody just loves each other and whatever. You’ve got to have a rivalry and it’s got to fire people up.”

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When the Mercedes boss had commented about the Red Bull chief

The back-and-forth between the two bosses is nothing new as there was a time when Toto Wolff too passed a dig at Christian Horner. He remarked that he lived rent-free in the Red Bull chief's head. He said,

“I am living in his head rent-free. The guy is obsessed. Every second that I spend on talking about Horner is a waste of time in my life.”

While all these verbal volleys are great, it would be exciting to once again have these two going at it against each other. The rivalry in 2021 was not only intense, but it was also captivating.