Christian Horner defiant as Red Bull crisis deepens: 'We are not idiots'

Christian Horner has insisted that Red Bull "are not idiots" as its 2025 season hit a new low in the Austrian Grand Prix.

At its home race, Max Verstappen was eliminated for the team on the opening lap after contact with Kimi Antonelli, whilst Yuki Tsunoda had another bad afternoon, coming home a classified 16th and last.

Verstappen is now 61 points behind drivers' championship leader Oscar Piastri, with the team languishing in fourth in the constructors' on 162 points, 47 behind third-placed Mercedes, who are locked in a fight with Ferrari for second behind runaway leaders McLaren.

Of these 162 points, Verstappen has scored 155 of them, with the RB21 proving a car that Liam Lawson and then Tsunoda are not capable of getting on top of, with rumours continuing to swirl that Verstappen could be about to defect to Mercedes.

As the crisis deepens, Horner has insisted that the team "are not idiots" and pointed to the mighty RB19 of 2023, which won 21 of 22 races and shattered a host of F1 records in Verstappen's hands as he crushed the field on his way to his third title.

"I believe that we have strength and depth in this team, but unfortunately, we haven't seen the performance come which we would have liked," Horner told media, including RacingNews365. 

"We're at the end of a set of regulations, we are compromised by some of the tools we have, but it is the same fundamental group of figures who, 18 months ago, had designed a car which won every single grand prix, bar one. 

"They just don't suddenly become idiots overnight, so you have to acknowledge the great job McLaren is doing and congratulations to them, but for us, it is not just about working harder, because everyone is working incredibly hard, but about working smarter.

"We are just focusing on every grand prix and trying to grab every opportunity, like we did in Montreal, we were second ahead of the McLarens and [in Austria the Canada] race-winner [George Russell] was 62 seconds behind and being caught by a Sauber, so it shows how it shifts around.