"You love to hate me and now I'm gone": Mercedes boss Toto Wolff reveals text from Christian Horner

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff reveals he got a text from Christian Horner after he was fired where the Brit joked about what the Austrian was doing now that he had left. The two team bosses have been the primary rivals in the sport for a while now, and before 2024, when McLaren ended this run, since 2010, only Horner and Wolff's teams had won the championship.

The rivalry reached its peak in 2021 when Max Verstappen in Red Bull and Lewis Hamilton in Mercedes squared off. The battle continued throughout the season, and so did the back-and-forth between the drivers and the team. The back-and-forth, however, was not limited only to the drivers, both Christian Horner and Toto Wolff also got into it and went after each other with snide remarks.

Even beyond that, the two have continued to go after each other. Unfortunately for Christian Horner, after hitting the peaks of 2023, the team had a sudden downturn. Since early 2024, the team has been going through a lot of turbulence, and that led to the Red Bull board firing him.

With Horner leaving the grid for now, the Mercedes boss, Toto Wolff, has admitted that he does miss having his rival on the grid. Talking to the media, including Motorsport, Wolff revealed a message he had received from Horner where he joked about what the Austrian was doing now with his key rival not on the grid anymore. He said,

"He said to me: 'What are you doing now, because you love to hate me and I'm gone!’. It's a bit ambivalent because, A, his track record is very good - one of the most successful in Formula 1. So, clearly there are things he's done well. Within the team, I think he was to a certain degree, respected in Milton Keynes. But then we didn't often have the same opinion or perspective."

He added,

"So, he's been a wonderful, great enemy over the years. Am I missing him? It's quite strange to come here and Christian's not going to be around. I mean, what are you doing with him not around? That's a bit weird. And then you have the pragmatism of Laurent Mekies. Suddenly you can have a conversation about the long term. We're just totally different people, but even your biggest enemy is your best friend."

Mercedes boss clarifies his remark about Christian Horner joining Flavio Briatore at Alpine

In the pre-race press conference, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff had said that he would love to see Christian Horner join Alpine and return to the grid in partnership with Flavio Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone. Talking to the media, the Austrian was asked to elaborate on the comments he'd made, to which he said that having these protagonists tends to bring better competition and make things fun as well. He said,

"What I said is that every movie needs the good, the bad and the ugly. Now the bad is gone, it's only Fred [Vasseur at Ferrari] and I left... It took Fred a while to think about that. The sport needs that. In the past we had those massive characters and I hope that some of the new team principals are going to grow into these roles in an authentic way, because you can't fake it."

He added,

"Christian was one of those protagonists. He was outspoken, he was controversial, he was an ass, and he loved to play that role. You need an asshole, people need to hate someone."

With Christian Horner gone, the Mercedes boss is the longest-serving team boss on the F1 grid. He joined the team in 2013 and is now the only one to have been around during the naturally aspirated era of V8 engines.