Helmut Marko has launched a blistering attack on Christian Horner, blaming him for, amongst other things, Max Verstappen missing out on the title.
Much like Lewis Hamilton - especially in the wake of the 2025 season - we're going to have to wait for the book to learn the true story of what's been going on at Red Bull over the last two years.
The wheels appeared to come off in early 2024 when talk of inappropriate behaviour involving Christian Horner and a female employee began to surface. Amidst the investigations into the 'affair', there was talk of a split within the team involving those on Horner's side and an Austrian faction unhappy with the Milton Keynes outfit's British bias, certainly as far as the media was involved.
While Horner was cleared of any wrongdoing the unease within the team continued, the deteriorating atmosphere leading to various key members of staff leaving, not least design superstar Adrian Newey.
Though outwardly the team went into 2025 looking as though things had calmed down clearly this was a misconception for in the summer Horner was fired without warning.
His firing coincided with a slump in team performance, but a raft of upgrades commencing at Monza saw the team turn things around to such an extent that Max Verstappen went into the final race of the season with a chance of scoring his fifth successive title.
That he failed, according to Helmut Marko, who left the team last week, was down to the team's former boss.
"We had to act," the Austrian tells De Limburger, "because performance on track was falling behind.
"If we had done it earlier, we would have got things back on track sooner and Max Verstappen would have been world champion this year," he adds. "I am absolutely convinced of that."
Referring to the set-up of the team, he says: "Together with Didi, I founded Red Bull Racing in 2005. We appointed Horner as team principal, and I was there as a supervisor. In principle, the power was always in Austria, we made the decisions."
While the decisions were made in Austria, the fact is that the team was based in the UK, home to the majority of the teams, and it was a Briton at the helm as the team won countless drivers' and constructors' titles.
Marko insists that behind the scenes Horner was playing a political power game and used the passing of Dietrich Mateschitz to his advantage.
"I remember a party earlier that year, ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix, Didi was there but not in good health," recalls the Austrian. "Christian came up to me and said 'he won't make it to the end of the year'.
From that moment on, Christian began cozying up to Chalerm Yoovidhya," he continues, referring to Red Bull's co-owner. "When Didi passed away later that year, Christian did everything he could to take control of the company with Yoovidhya's support. On behalf of Austria, I did everything possible to prevent that.
"Those final years with Horner were not pleasant," he says. "Dirty games were being played. Do you remember when it was claimed that I said Mexicans were less focused than Dutch or German people during Sergio Perez's time? That was fabricated, possibly by them.
"The same goes for the claim that in 2024 I spread the story that our engine development was behind schedule and that we would therefore lose Ford as a partner," he continues. "I never said that, but Horner wanted to use it to have me suspended. Because of Max's support in Jeddah, that didn't happen.
"More and more often, we were able to prove that Horner lied about all sorts of things. Once Chalerm realised that too, he changed his mind."
The Austrian veteran was asked about the fact that the press release announcing his 'departure' was open to interpretation, Marko having since insisted the decision was entirely his and that it wasn't a case of jumping before being pushed.
"I don't want to go into too much detail, but I didn't read that press release full of nonsense," he says. "Let's just say that a lot has changed at the team in a short period of time. You think you know people well, but in the end that turns out not to be the case, I really won't say more."
Meanwhile, Toto Wolff has joined the Horner-bashing. In an interview with The Telegraph, the Austrian admits that never a day passes without recalling the events of Abu Dhabi 2021.
"We haven't got over it," he says. "I talked to Lewis about it yesterday. I think about it every day and so does he. And it's stayed with the team, too.
"Both were deserving champions," he adds, "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 he has ever sat down with Horner to discuss the matter, Wolff says: "Never. 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.
"Christian was never able to admit the same," he adds, "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.
"I think that the ability to be introspective or 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."
Over to you Christian...
sign in