Christian Horner drops 'nightmare' claim about Helmut Marko and Max Verstappen signing

Christian Horner has remarkably claimed that Helmut Marko was initially reluctant to bring Max Verstappen into the Red Bull fold as a young driver, pointing to the Dutchman's father, Jos, as the "nightmare" sticking point.

In Horner's upcoming book, Drive, he pulls no punches when it comes to Marko. In an article in The Times, it says that Horner portrays Marko as 'an abrasive, erratic, cold, unreliable, ruthless and fundamentally disloyal operator whose lack of empathy, compulsion to leak and divisive driver favouritism undermined the team'.

Horner says he was blindsided by how coldly Marko treated him when he was dismissed from Red Bull earlier this year, given that the Austrian had been staying at his house just days before.

"A few days earlier he’d stayed at my house and spent time with my family, yet not a word had been said," remarked Horner.

Speaking to The Times, Horner acknowledged that it was Marko who had given him his own break at the team, recommending him to Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz.

"If you wind the clock back, he gave me the initial opportunity," he said. " He saw something in me that he liked and he put me in front of Dietrich [Mateschitz]."

But Horner said that sense of gratitude faded over time, particularly after Mateschitz's death.

"But towards the end, and certainly after Dietrich died, he didn’t really have a function. I think he always viewed me as the protégé. And I was way beyond that."

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Marko - 'We don't need this one'

Horner also recalled Marko's surprising stance on bringing Verstappen into the Red Bull system, revealing that he was reluctant to sign the young Dutchman, with Jos Verstappen at the centre of his concerns.

According to Horner, Marko described Jos as "a nightmare" at the time, adding that: "We don't need this one."

Verstappen went on to become a four-time F1 champion with Red Bull, a trajectory that stands in stark contrast to Marko's early scepticism.

Asked about his own mistakes during his time in charge at Milton Keynes, Horner again pointed to Marko when discussing how the team handled its young drivers.

“It wasn’t how I would deal with things," he said. "I felt that I was always mopping up the shit.

"Maybe I am a bit of a Marmite character. I know I’m not everybody’s cup of tea. It’s impossible to be."