Ferrari President John Elkann has recently slammed Christian Horner with an ultimatum over the release of Red Bull engineers from Milton-Keynes. Elkann with a warning said that if Horner doesn’t leave the engineer, he will not allow Laurent Mekies to move to AlphaTauri.
Mekies, the current Scuderia Ferrari race director is slated to leave the Italian team and move to the Faenza-based team to take Franz Tost’s seat as the team principal.
However, that might not be possible now as the tug of war between Horner and Elkann reached the utmost level, with Elkann facing an adamant Red Bull boss, who recently lost their long-time partner Honda to Aston Martin.
Elkann slams Horner with an ultimatum
According to Motorsport Italy, Elkann moved to speak with the Red Bull boss in Monte Carlo Paddock about the engineers who are believed to be ready to leave Milton Keynes.
Elkann, who also met with Toto Wolff of Mercedes, reportedly said if Horner doesn’t comply with leaving the engineers on time [for Gardening leave], he will not leave Mekies for AlphaTauri, who is to take over as the Red Bull sister team’s boss.
Ferrari president John Elkann and Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff meeting in the Monaco paddock just now pic.twitter.com/OIu8jJJcLv
— Andrew Benson (@andrewbensonf1) May 26, 2023
A conversation was seen to be happening between the Red Bull higher-ups and its Ferrari counterparts where the possibilities were discussed. However, with no solid outcome, the deal is still hanging in the balance.
Ferrari wants to those engineers from the onset of the 2024 season in order to develop the SF-23’s predecessor. On the other hand, Horner wants to redevelop the AlphaTauri, which is currently in a dismal state.
Swap deal between Red Bull and Ferrari
As the recent developments, the Prancing Horse signed two engineers from the defending champions last month. As per reports, the duo is all set to start their work in Maranello in the 2024 season.
In order to ramp up their development and further strengthen their challengers, the Red team has been pushing to include more and more top talents from teams, as well as from outside.
🚨| Enrico Balbo, Red Bull’s Head of Aerodynamics, could be heading to Ferrari at the start of 2024.
Balbo is the No. 3 engineer at Red Bull, after Adrian Newey and Technical Director, Pierre Waché.
He also worked at Mercedes in between 2014-2017. pic.twitter.com/f5pZTfEMsv
— Ferrari News 🐎 (@FanaticsFerrari) May 1, 2023
Apart from asking for engineers on LinkedIn, Ferrari has reportedly roped in the engineers from Red Bull in a swap deal with AlphaTauri [Red Bull’s sister team] on Laurent Mekies.
However, the engineers are now required to have the ‘gardening leave’ before they can switch teams in order to stay away from the developments in a rival team. But for now, Horner is reluctant to let them go.
