It was only a few weeks ago that Christian Horner partied the night away in Mayfair, a surprise bash at Mount St restaurant organised by his Spice Girl wife, Geri. Horner has often smiled when he remembers he was once the new boy, the youngest member of the Piranha Club of Formula One’s team bosses. They were denied not only by Horner in his SMS exchanges with me but by the team’s PR machine. As one Red Bull observer said yesterday: ‘Mintzlaff wants Horner to depart, not least because he has become too senior and too expensive for their liking. Another figure in the mix is Dr Helmut Marko, Red Bull’s 80-year-old motorsport adviser — an Austrian believed to be more in line with Mintzlaff’s outlook than Horner’s. ‘There is the notion that he wants his revenge on Horner, and wants him out.’. This is all a horror for Horner, who was born into motoring.

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