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Horner Sacked!

Well slap my thigh and call me Gladys.  Check the calendar, nope yesterday wasn't the 31st March.

Red Bull Racing have sacked Christian Horner.

Seriously?!?!  This feels like one of those football sackings when a top team is struggling and whaddya gonna do?  It's "quicker" to replace the man at the top than the entire squad.  But F1 is an engineering formula, there aren't three races to get your "new manager bounce" and bag some points.

I guess the problem is that Horner didn't demonstrate he could change the management philosophy he had been responsible for.  The relentless focus on Verstappen has resulted in a car that only he can get performance out of and perhaps a team that simply doesn't know any other way to build the platform.

I don't think it's about losing Newey - or if it is then Horner is well out of there and RB GmbH is incredibly short-termist.  Newey, Marshall and Wheatley were going to leave one day.  Similarly it can't be about keeping Verstappen who will leave one day.  But perhaps it's about succession.  They have not been replaced to maintain the level of performance.

Mekies job is surely to find and shape those replacements.  However he is starting "saddled" with the staff he has.  And definitely handicapped with the young driver programme and Marko consistently being unable to deliver a Ricciardo replacement.  Let alone a Verstappen successor.
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