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Once it has become clear that no rival is capable of endangering Red Bull’s current supremacy in the Formula 1 World Championship, the energy team has launched a process of self-destruction from its own core, or rather from within. from your garage. The formation that has chained the last three titles with Max Verstappen in its most stellar version does everything possible to abstract itself from the cataclysm that has been seen coming for days after the dismissal of an employee who accused Christian Horner, the director and CEO of the division of the company’s F1, of harassment. That earthquake will most likely explode before the next event, in Australia, in two weeks. It is not easy to gauge at this moment what scale it will have, but it cannot even be ruled out that the consequences could even lead to an eventual departure of Verstappen before his contract expires in 2028.
The Dutchman continues to show that he is a competitive beast of a higher level. Someone with the ability to encapsulate the bad vibes that are felt in the garage that his team has installed this weekend on the Jeddah circuit, and leave them there, with all the bad vibes, while he goes out to the track and gets at more than 300 per hour in a car assembled by those same technicians and mechanics who also do not know very well how things will end.
In Saudi Arabia, Mad Max He gave more strength to the inertia with which he arrived from Bahrain, the event that opened the calendar, and celebrated his second victory of a course that promises much more excitement for what happens in the paddock, the back room, than on the asphalt. Checo Pérez signed the second consecutive double for the red buffalo brand, while Charles Leclerc climbed to the third step of the podium. Fernando Alonso crossed the finish line fifth, while Oliver Bearman, the young man who replaced Carlos Sainz after the Madrid native had to retire to undergo appendicitis surgery, finished seventh. This result reconfirms the supremacy of the RB20, especially in the hands of Verstappen, and leaves a sporting panorama very similar to that of the last two seasons. Indirectly, that same dominance legitimizes fans seeking other focuses of attention. Nothing better than a soap opera like the one that Red Bull has offered in the last month and a half, with a plot that the scriptwriters of Succession, the acclaimed series that chronicles the fights for power within one of the richest families in the United States. In the case at hand, the dispute would be over the throne left vacant by Dietrich Mateschitz, the co-founder of the most famous energy drink giant in the world, when he died, at the end of October 2022.
Recent events present a situation with two clearly defined sides. On one side would be Horner, the protagonist of the start of this championship, having been the subject of an internal investigation by his own structure, following accusations of inappropriate behavior made against him by an employee. On the opposite side would be the veteran ex-pilot Helmut Marko, Mateschitz’s first advisor and one of the most important figures in the Red Bull organizational chart, at least until the death of his colleague. Despite trying to project an image of normality, the crossed offensives have meant that their desire to take the reins of Red Bull has led to levels of tension that must be released. However, it is not yet clear which flank will prevail, or even if any of them will do so.