Christian Horner has fired more shots at Toto Wolff and Mercedes (Image: Getty)
has reignited his war of words with , claiming that have hired ‘over 200 staff’ from . The under-fire team principal has been heavily criticised recently amid a mass exodus within the Milton Keynes-based outfit.
The headline departure from this season was Adrian Newey with the legendary aerodynamicist’s exit announced ahead of the Miami Grand Prix. He was then confirmed as a long-term part of Aston Martin’s plan, signing a bumper contract ahead of the race in Baku.
have also lost the services of technical director Jonathan Wheatley, who has agreed to become the team principal of Audi ahead of their entry onto the grid in 2026. Elsewhere, chief strategist Will Courtenay has been poached by to step into the technical director role in Woking.
Despite these key departures, Horner is optimistic about the future and when quizzed about the flow of staff out of Milton Keynes, he couldn’t resist taking a dig at one of ’s main rivals, .
“We’ve recruited, I think, close to 250 people during the last 12 months, across the project, into powertrains, into the brand new engine shop that we’re building,” he explained. “We don’t talk about the over 200 people we brought from . There’s a lot of focus on the two people that are leaving because they’re slightly more public-facing.”
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Toto Wolff has been unconvinced by Christian Horner’s maths (Image: Getty)
This wasn’t the first time that Horner made that claim in 2024. Back in May, he responded to comments from Racing CEO , who told the media that he had witnessed a steady stream of CVs from landing on his desk after the news of Newey’s departure.
“I don’t know how many people we or RB have employed from this year,” Horner hit back. “We have taken 220 people out of [] HPP into Powertrains. So, when we are talking about losing people, I would be a bit more worried about the 220 than maybe one or two CVs.”
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These comments didn’t go down well with boss Wolff, who moved quickly to correct his rival. “You have got to work on the maths – 19 engineers,” he stated. “Whatever those numbers are, there are natural fluctuations that come and go, which is completely normal.”
Horner can at least take some comfort from the remaining talent pool at . They have been able to tie Pierre Wache and Gianpiero Lambiase down to new contracts, with the latter joining Hannah Schmitz in enjoying a promotion thanks to an internal reshuffle.