Toto Wolff and Christian Horner took a photo together at the end of the 2023 F1 season which raised multiple eyebrows. Horner and Wolff share an intense rivalry that only became stronger after their duel in 2021. Wolff now jumps to spill the beans behind why that photo was taken. He dismisses all rumors of a rekindling friendship between the two.
Wolff said to OE24 as per GP Blog, “Friends? The last handshake was maybe in 2021, before the last race. But you have to acknowledge your competitor’s achievements. I respect what the Red Bull team has achieved.”
The season finale in 2021 was a defining landmark both for Wolff and Horner. They shook hands before Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen battled it out for the world championship at the Abu Dhabi GP.
Following that year, things got worse between them as they kept taking digs at each other. Be it Horner asking Wolff to change his car to Wolff slamming Horner for talking out of the box [Hamilton’s link to Red Bull], they have not stopped. However, the season-ending photo this year has indeed been very light-hearted.
Toto Wolff revealed how he ended up with Christian Horner and took the photo
Over the last several years, the Abu Dhabi GP has been the season finale in F1. Therefore, all the prominent members of every team were present in the Yas Marina Circuit. One of them was Mark Mateschitz, son of the late Dietrich Mateschitz.
Wolff has a great connection with Mateschitz Jr. even if the latter’s family is the co-founder of Red Bull and its subsidiary Red Bull Racing. Therefore, going to meet an arch-rival and share laughter makes sense since both of them are Austrian.
The Mercedes boss, explaining how the photo came into existence, said, “That was on the way out of the paddock. There was a nice group around Mark Mateschitz, his mother, and a few people I know well. I joined them and had a nice chat with Geri (Halliwell, Horner’s wife) and that’s how the photo came about.”
Christian Horner and Toto Wolff take jabs at each other very often, but Geri Halliwell once joked that his Red Bull boss husband loves his Mercedes counterpart more than her. Nevertheless, things between them can spice up and intensify once more when the 2024 F1 season starts again in February.
