Christian Horner has been the media’s food ever since the start of February. But there seems to be a curious update in his relationship with what seems to be his former close friend, Adrian Newey. Because rumor has it there has been some rather confusing messaging from Red Bull‘s oh-so-controversial boss.

And an insider didn’t shy away from exposing the curious workings of the Red Bull garage.

Insider reveals Christian Horner intentionally tried to dull Newey’s impact on the RB20

Popular F1 journalist, Mark Hughes reveals Christian Horner deliberately attempted to discourage people from assuming that Adrian Newey is responsible for the teams’ big recent success. Hughes revealed in the comments of his column in Motorsport Magazine, “Christian has often tried to discourage the assumption that everything is led by Adrian“

Supposedly there is a good reason for it, as the columnist goes on to say that it was to give “the others get due credit, particularly Enrico Balbo, chief of aero.” However, he carried on to say, “Adrian is absolutely where the broad-brush concepts usually start from, particularly when there is a new set of regulations.”

Read more: F1 Rumor: Adrian Newey Can Quit if Christian Horner Gets Axed After Red Bull Investigation

It seems that despite Christian Horner’s effort, Newey still has an impact he might not want to acknowledge, with their “broken” relationship.

Adrian Newey is the reason behind Red Bull’s success

Newey is a bit of a rockstar on the F1 grid and a bit of a pain for competitors. But that’s all for a good reason, in fact, a lot of the car’s success can be credited to this man alone. And he’s not one to shy away from his work. Hughes revealed, “It was Adrian who intrinsically understood that the suspension platform was going to be way more important and who actually designed the suspension of the RB18 himself. That suspension has remained pretty much the same in the subsequent two cars.”

Yup, RB18 is the car that won Max Verstappen his first championship. Moreover, it seems that the technical mastermind has a rather radical approach to car aerodynamics which is different from what the others are following, as the columnist details, “his mantra about aerodynamics has always been maximising usable downforce, as opposed to maximum downforce.”

“He probably did not design the actual underbody which facilitated that, but he will absolutely have been outlining general principles and targets for the people who did. They would do the research and the subsequent shaping, but with Newey still feeding in and looking out for any booby traps.”

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Whether Newey stays on the team or not, which supposedly depends on Christian Horner, it seems his unconventional ways will always keep a mark in the F1 world.