Toto Wolff lands "sense of entitlement” jab at Christian Horner

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has taken a swipe at his former arch F1 rival Christian Horner.

Horner was sacked by Red Bull after 20 years as team principal following this year’s British Grand Prix, and Wolff has claimed the Briton’s “sense of entitlement” ultimately led to his downfall.

Mercedes team principal Wolff was discussing the outcome of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, in which Lewis Hamilton lost out on the world title to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in controversial circumstances, when he made the jab at Horner.

Speaking to The Telegraph, Wolff admitted that both he and seven-time world champion Hamilton remain haunted by the outcome of that season after Michael Masi made a mistake in his handling of the Safety Car restart that paved the way for Verstappen to snatch the title away from Hamilton.

“I talked to Lewis about it yesterday,” Wolff said. “I think about it every day and so does he.

“It’s stayed with the team, too. Both were deserving champions, but the referee made a bad call, to use a football analogy, and you can’t reverse it. The goal has been scored, the game is finished.”

Asked if Horner had ever admitted that what happened was wrong, Wolff replied: “He was never able to admit it.

“I try to look at it from the other side – and from their point of view, they deserved to be world champions, they had had some incidents that were unfair to them throughout the season, and the outcome of that race is a fair representation of the performance levels during the season.

“But Christian was never able to admit the same – that if it was the other way round and had happened to them that day, it would have been catastrophic, and he would have come up with all kinds of insults. And I think that the ability to be introspective or be able to see the other side with some compassion is a total gap in his personality.

“It’s the sense of entitlement he has. And that bit him in the end, because he felt entitled to all the power, and Red Bull didn’t want to give him that power.”

Wolff and Horner regularly clashed horns off track during their teams’ respective on-track rivalry in F1.

Wolff called Horner a “yapping little terrier” after a fallout involving Verstappen and George Russell at the end of the 2024 season. 

Horner is seeking a new job in F1, having agreed a severance package with Red Bull that enables him to return to the paddock in 2026.