Reports of rift at Red Bull between Christian Horner and Helmut Marko do not make sense

Red Bull has been in the news in the last few days for some strange news. It all started with reports from a lesser-known Brazilian publication, Globo, making quite a few outrageous claims about the team.

The claims first started with the team giving an ultimatum to Sergio Perez where he had to finish the season in P2 in the championship or risk losing his seat. It was, however, the second claim, which was a major surprise and has forced both Helmut Marko and Christian Horner to come out and refute the same.

According to Globo, there is a possibility that Red Bull is looking to get rid of Helmut Marko, and one of the major driving forces behind it is none other than Christian Horner.

According to the report, Marko seems to have ruffled too many feathers with his loose-cannon nature in the media as he tends to give too many off-the-cuff quotes. One of those quotes that landed him in trouble recently was about Sergio Perez and his underperformance being contributed to him being a Mexican.

To add to this, with a change at the top of the leadership at Red Bull after Dietrich Mateschitz's death, there are conversations on what they want to do with Marko, who is an employee of Red Bull corporate and not the racing team.

If we try to assign logic to this, there certainly is a little of it. A war at the top of the leadership between Christian Horner and Helmut Marko makes little sense at this stage.

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Christian Horner and Helmut Marko's work do not overlap

The most important part is that the work done by Christian Horner at Red Bull does not overlap with Helmut Marko's duties. Marko has always been more into the team's young drivers program and has constantly tried to find new talent that would be a future star in F1. That's where names like Max Verstappen, Daniel Ricciardo, Sebastian Vettel, Carlos Sainz, and others come into the picture.

Meanwhile, Horner has been more concerned with the day-to-day working of the racing team. Does Marko give his input to the racing team? Of course, he does, but that is not an overriding call.

Even if Horner can push Marko out of the team, how does it benefit him? He's already the team leader and CEO and there does not appear to be any upside to any of these.

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Helmut Marko running his mouth in the media is nothing new

The comment about Sergio Perez was in poor taste. Even if Marko was quick to apologize, the damage was already done.

While this was poor, was it the first time something Marko said caused a controversy? The answer to that is no. This is the overall Helmut Marko experience where the Austrian's lack of filter has meant that Red Bull has been forced to run for cover against the backlash.

Why would it suddenly become a liability? Maybe because the corporate side of Red Bull cannot handle such negative PR? Sure, that could be the case, but then why would this be a cause for friction or a rift between Marko and Horner? It certainly shouldn't, because it has always been the case with the Austrian.

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The Red Bull boss is not foolish to cause unnecessary instability

Finally, the most important thing that few have paid heed to is the fact that the Red Bull boss is not a foolish man.

Christian Horner is a student of F1 who has seen how important stability is for success within the sport. He and the entire team have worked ridiculously hard in the last decade to regain this stature that they now enjoy.

Bringing in such a major distraction of a possible feud at the top of management and causing unnecessary instability is something one expects from a team like Ferrari, which has a history of doing this.

From Red Bull? That too under the leadership of Christian Horner? No, that's not happening.