Horner at the END with Red Bull as decline hits new lows

Red Bull has fallen. But perhaps the biggest surprise at seeing them toppled from the top of the championship is that it isn’t actually a surprise. The downfall of Christian Horner’s team has seemed inevitable for many weeks now.That sounds like nonsense but at the start of the season, Red Bull were favourites for both world championships and even after the Spanish Grand Prix only three months ago they were in a supreme position. Max Verstappen led the drivers’ title by 69 points from Lando Norris and Red Bull were still a comfortable 60 points ahead of Ferrari and a huge 93 points clear of McLaren.From that position, another double world championship seemed even more inevitable than it did before the season started. What’s happened since Verstappen’s last F1 win though in Catalunya has been quite remarkable. Is Christian Horner still the right man to lead Red Bull? Have your say in our GPFans poll at the bottom of this page.Red Bull are on the F1 declineVerstappen may be edging towards another world championship and is still the favourite, but it’s now notable how the battle in that fight is if he can limit his reducing advantage to Norris over the final seven races, while McLaren have surged back in the constructors’ title to now lead for the first time in 10 years. McLaren are now top dogs and Red Bull have hit a new low.Granted, cracks were already appearing. Some of it Red Bull’s own doing. The Horner scandal of him being investigated over inappropriate behaviour that Horner denied and was eventually cleared of may have now passed, but it was a negative force lingering over the team throughout the early season.Legendary designer Adrian Newey had decided to move on during this period and that already came off the back of many of the successful figures that made Red Bull such a dominant force in the first place moving on to fresh challenges at other teams. These sorts of changes are bound to bring disruption.Other factors are less influenced by Red Bull, gains made by other teams for instance. Another being the diminishing returns of finding more performance from these set of regulations as others catch up.Combine that with the reduced development time Red Bull also have to rivals in relation to their top place finish in the constructors’ championship in recent seasons. In a sport obsessed with marginal gains, these factors add up.But as already suggested, none of this is really ground-breaking information anymore. The last seven races have been the very clear indicators that Red Bull are no longer the fastest team.