Outside Line: A year ago Jos said Red Bull will "explode" with Horner...

At Red Bull, the buck stops with team principal Christian Horner. Forget the sexting scandal and the fallout that came with it. Just on performance alone, there’s no excuse. The writing has been on the wall since Verstappen’s seven wins in the first ten races of last season dried up mid-year.

And they haven’t recovered. Only Verstappen’s masterful magic puts that car and team in places they shouldn’t be. Red Bull were once spot-on with race strategy and slicker-than-slick pit servicing of their #1 car. But even that’s corroding—if the ‘stubborn red light’ pit stop fiasco in Bahrain is anything to go by.

I almost doubted myself. After the 2 Soft Compounds episode previewing the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, I thought maybe I was too harsh on Red Bull. Too harsh on Christian Horner. I figured, let me do some due diligence before doubling down—maybe I owe an apology. Sometimes emotions run high. This is sport, after all.

But then I remembered something. When I said Red Bull were exploding—or imploding—I wasn’t the first. Someone else saw this coming long ago.

Last year, Jos publicly warned that Red Bull were heading for collapse. His words were blunt and prophetic, made in the wake of Horner’s sexting scandal that rocked the team from early 2024.

Verstappen senior told reporters at the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix: “There is tension here while he [Horner] remains in position. The team is in danger of being torn apart. It can’t go on the way it is. It will explode. He is playing the victim, when he is the one causing the problems.”

That was a year ago. And he was absolutely right.

At the time, Horner weathered a job-threatening crisis and survived. He insisted it was “business as usual.” But it wasn’t. A high-powered brain drain followed—Adrian Newey left his post as Chief Technical Officer and is now heading to Aston Martin.

Jonathan Wheatley, Red Bull’s Sporting Director, moved to Audi. Will Courtenay, the Head of Race Strategy, joined McLaren. Rob Marshall left as Chief Designer and is also now at McLaren. Look where Zak Brown’s team is with your former chaps, Christian.

Look at what’s happened since Jos made that prediction. One by one, the heavy-hitters are gone. This team is no longer bulletproof. It is broken.

The day after the 2 Soft Compounds podcast went live—the one in which Rick Houghton and I discussed this very topic—Juan Pablo Montoya came to my rescue. He told the media team at Plejmo: “I’d be amazed if Verstappen is driving for Red Bull next year.”

Monty reckons Max is already hopping. Mercedes, he believes, might throw everything at him to lure him over. But the point is this: Montoya, Jos—everyone sees the same thing: “It’s the beginning of the end of Max Verstappen at Red Bull.”

He is not wrong. We are not wrong. Max now faces a decision: chase the next big deal or hope that Red Bull stop crumbling, piece by piece, with Horner facing his sternest challenges in two glorious decades in charge of Red Bull.

The RBR team principal has a broken team to mend. Montoya suggested what many feared: the damage is done. It started last year and continues into this season. In 2024, Max scored three wins in four races. This year, he has one victory, thanks to 'The Miracle of Suzuka' drive only he can muster.

We can assume Newey’s influence on last year’s RB20—the current car—ended around mid-2024. He was probably mentally checked out long before his departure was announced, as 'that' scandal dragged on and on. And it shows. Since then, Red Bull lost the plot.

Most recently, take Bahrain. The pit stop errors for both Yuki Tsunoda and Max Verstappen were amateur hour. Completely un-Red Bull. It looked more like the Keystone Cops than a world-class F1 team. Horner’s crew set the benchmark on pit stops for two decades—clearly, not anymore.

Blame it on Helmut Marko, maybe but the buck stops with the team principal. The Red Bull driver programme has become a joke. Their handling of the team’s number two drivers has been horrendous—short-sighted and damaging to the likes of Sergio Perez and Liam Lawson, on all fronts. Among many fine F1 drivers. Only the genius and tenacity of Verstappen keep this team relevant.

And now for the latest laugh. Horner dusted off the oldest excuse in the sport: “Wind tunnel correlation.”

A line we've heard from teams in disarray since wings were bolted onto F1 cars. The same old excuse used to explain Ferrari’s sh!tb0xes during their lean years. The same one McLaren leaned on when they built a “Formula 2 car” for Fernando Alonso. It’s the last page in the F1 excuse book for prolonged performance shortfalls.

Unless I can be convinced otherwise—or unless Horner joins Rick and me on the 2 Soft Compounds podcast to set the record straight—this is where we are now: Jos Verstappen saw it a year ago. Montoya sees it now. So do we. The Red Bull explosion is happening.

The final detonation will be when Max Verstappen decides to follow Newey to Aston Martin or wherever he can win. Watch this space!