Why the Red Bull/RB F1 alliance controversy is not going to disappear

Was it an inspired moment of filibuster to try to time out an official press conference? Or was it simply because it is a topic that he feels strongly about?

Whatever the motivation, Red Bull boss Christian Horner’s 3m30s monologue about Formula 1 team alliances this week offered a fascinating snapshot into one of the biggest political issues bubbling away behind the scenes.

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What initially started at the end of last season as some critical public comments from McLaren CEO Zak Brown about the ever-closer ties between Red Bull and sister squad RB is fast becoming something much bigger. Ultimately, there are two distinct issues all wrapped up inside a big topic that potentially impacts every team on the grid.

While this collaborative matter is something that has flared up occasionally regarding Ferrari and Haas in recent years, it is clear that the spotlight right now is on what Red Bull’s two teams are doing. Not all squads are in agreement of the details, but each has its own opinions about what needs to be done.

From one perspective, which is where Brown has been vocal, the time has come for a rethink about F1’s rules surrounding teams sharing parts and working closely together.

Horner and Mekies fielded questions on the relationship of their teams during pre-season testing

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

With F1 now under a budget cap, and the grid perhaps closer than it has ever been, the argument is that it is time for all competitors to be fully independent.

“I don't think they are cheating,” Brown told Autosport about the Red Bull/RB situation. “But the rules aren’t fit for purpose.

"I don't understand the fuss about it. I don't understand the noise that's being created about it" Christian Horner

“There's not another major sport that I know of where you can own two teams that compete. It's not allowed in any other sport, because of political influence, and player trading. It’s for all the reasons you can think of.”

But there is another angle to it too, and concerns being voiced behind closed doors – although it is understood they have been brought up in F1 Commission meetings – of the need for greater scrutiny over what teams are doing when they form collaborative relationships.

The gist is very much that the FIA needs to up its game to go well beyond ensuring that teams are not sharing IP in aerodynamic parts. This is about knowledge, personnel, voting blocs and strategy gains not being exploited for an unfair advantage.

Horner, of course, has not taken kindly to any suggestions of nefarious behaviour – and was eager to point out in the Bahrain press conference room that he felt Red Bull should be praised for what it is doing in F1, not criticised.

Horner believes Red Bull should "be applauded" for its dedication to RB

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

“I don't understand the fuss about it,” he said. “I don't understand the noise that's being created about it.

“I think Red Bull should actually be applauded for the support and the commitment and the jobs that they've provided through the good times, and particularly the bad times. So for me, it really is a non-issue.”

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After recounting what Red Bull had done in F1, including taking over Minardi, keeping its squads going through the 2008 financial crisis and helping end F1’s COVID stoppage with back-to-back races at the Red Bull Ring in 2020, Horner added: “The commitment that Red Bull has made to F1, the commitment that Red Bull has made to these two teams, is outstanding and should be applauded. [We should] be grateful for it rather than derided and try to compromise.

“The two teams are totally separate. One is based in Italy. One is based in the UK, the one that is based in Italy has a far larger turnover of staff that end up in Maranello than end up in Milton Keynes. They have different personalities, they have different characters, and they comply continually with the regulations.

“Indeed, the relationship is far less tight than some of the teams that enjoy very tight relationships with their engine manufacturers.”

But, if Horner may have hoped his speech served to draw a line under the matter, he will have been disappointed because the rumbling seems certain to continue.

The RB features a significant number of design cues from the RB19 - although it is not alone in that

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

For a start, some pointed remarks he made – like for example that Red Bull owning two teams in the Champions League proving that co-ownership is allowed in other sports – were quickly being fact checked by rivals.

UEFA’s rules appears to prohibit such activity, with UEFA’s Article 5 banning the same individual or legal entity from having “control or influence” over more than one club playing in the same UEFA club competition.

At face value, this would surely prevent Red Bull-owned clubs FC Red Bull Salzburg (Austria), and RB Leipzig (Germany) competing against each other in the competition. But, as Horner said, they are both there.

"When you take a senior employee and you put them in another team and have no gardening leave, that's IP transfer because IP is in your head. And there's nothing stopping them from going back and forth” Zak Brown

But this is because of an interpretation of the specific wording of the rules – that the clubs cannot be ‘controlled’ by the same entity. This is different to being ‘owned’.

It is understood that Bundesliga team RB Leipzig passes Germany’s 50+1 rule that states club members must control 50% and an additional one share in the team.

Red Bull has controversially laid out a way for there to be 17 controlling members of the club (rather than just Red Bull itself), all of whom are employees of the brand. This effectively prevents control being taken by another party, as they can prevent new members being accepted.

But what makes the situation surrounding the Red Bull/RB collaboration issue so fascinating is that debunked arguments are not totally a one-way street.

One of the concerns voiced by Brown has been about the free movement of staff between collaborating teams like Red Bull and RB. While he has had to wait a year to get hold of senior staff like David Sanchez and Rob Marshall, it did not get past him that RB managed to get hold of senior Red Bull employees like senior race strategy analyst Nick Roberts and former chief engineer Guillaume Cattelani over one winter.

Brown has been the most vocal critic of the relationship between Red Bull and RB

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

“A lot of IP is in the head,” added Brown. “So, when you take a senior employee and you put them in another team and have no gardening leave, that's IP transfer because IP is in your head.

“And there's nothing stopping them from going back and forth.”

But, while there is no denying Roberts and Cattelani have made a quick move to Faenza, RB is quick to point out that, under FIA guidance, the restrictions of staff changing between the Red Bull teams are perhaps even more stringent than they are for teams that don’t work together.

Asked about the worries voiced over a lack of gardening leave in the movement of personnel from Red Bull to RB, Mekies was fascinating in revealing that rather than it being easier to take staff from Red Bull, there were actually bigger hurdles in place than with other teams.

“It is incorrect to say that no gardening leave was applied to any personal movement,” he said.

“The rules are clear: you cannot use personal movement to get around the listed parts/IP [regulations].

“How do you do that practically? We don't decide ourselves [on the gardening leave]. We go to the FIA, cards on the table, and say we are going to hire that guy.

Mekies claimed that there are "bigger hurdles" involved in hiring personnel from Red Bull than other teams

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

“The beauty of it is that I don't need to go to the FIA if I hire a guy from Mercedes or Ferrari, but I have to do it when they come from Red Bull!

“So we agree [with the FIA] on what is a reasonable gardening leave for that guy, and that's what we do. We self-impose, in agreement with the FIA and ourselves, between three and six months.

“The irony of it is that, as I said, we can get a guy from another team, if we agree with that team, in one day. And actually, the guys that are criticising us...sometimes it happens there, including a team principal that they change from one day to another. But ironically we do not allow ourselves to do it with Red Bull. And we have the cards on the table with the FIA, so all of that [criticism] is plain incorrect.”

“The regulations can always be improved" Bruno Famin

The unpicking of the details in the arguments from both sides highlights that the situation of team collaboration is one that has many layers – and it’s a topic that is not going to have a line drawn under it quickly.

Team boss discussions are continuing behind closed doors over the next week, and lobbying of the FIA and FOM – and even potentially breaches of FIA Rules with Article 101 of the Treaty of the Function of the European Union – will ramp up as moves are made to frame the 2026 regulations.

But finding a solution that appeases everyone is not going to be the work of a moment – and could also have some unintended consequences.

As Alpine boss Bruno Famin warned this week: “The regulations can always be improved.

“But let's be careful with that because generally when you try to solve one problem, you create five more...”

RB will hope to do its talking on the track when the 24-race season begins in Bahrain

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images