Styrian GP: Toto Wolff & Christian Horner heads Friday press conference

Mercedes AMG Formula One Team boss Toto Wolff and Red Bull’s Team Principal Christian Horner will attend 2021 Styrian GP Friday press conference together.

The press conference is scheduled to take place at 13:00 Hours Local time on Friday, 25 JUNE.

Aston Martin boss Otmar Szafnauer and McLaren CEO Zak Brown will be together part of another press conference.

Toto Wolff and Christian Horner don’t like each other very much. While there’s clearly a mutual respect between the two, Wolff and Horner have never shied away from taking jabs at the other in public.

There is no love last between two team bosses in the wake of intense 2021 Championship battle between the top two teams. For the past few weeks, Toto and Hamilton was very vocal about Red Bull’s flexi rear wing and its use of tyre pressures after a failure for Verstappen in Baku. 

Horner went on full attack mode ahead of the sixth race of the year. In an interview with Sky Sports as footage was shown of Red Bull’s wing appearing to flex at top speed, footage was also shown of Mercedes’ front wing appearing to do similar.

To that, Horner said: “I think if I was Toto with the front wing he’s got on his car, I’d keep my mouth shut.”

Speaking in response to Horner’s comments, Wolff told Sky Sports: “Christian is a bit of a windbag who wants to be on camera.

“It’s easy to be punchy when you’re on the top of the times sheets but you should be a little bit more modest.”

New clampdowns were enforced by the FIA in both areas for the French Grand Prix weekend, but it did not appear to hinder Red Bull’s performance as it took pole, the fastest lap and the race win.

Asked how much of a relief it was to win the race despite the technical directives from the FIA, Horner felt it had proved Red Bull’s critics wrong.

“A lot of comments have been made in the last few weeks,” Horner said following Sunday’s race at Paul Ricard. “We’ve had accusations made. But we’ve complied with the rules and the way that we’ve reacted I think shows the strength and depth, that our performance isn’t based on rear wing flexibility.

“[At] all times we’ve always followed the prescriptions from Pirelli, and obviously the increase in tyre pressure this weekend was challenging for all the teams.

“But again, the engineering team have done a great job in optimising the car around it.”

Horner had claimed in the lead-up to Sunday’s race that Red Bull could beat Mercedes “anywhere” if it could do so at Paul Ricard, the track having been a stronghold for the German marque in recent years.

Horner said the performance in the race to overturn Mercedes’ traditional advantage was “testament to how hard the team has worked” in the past 12 months.

“Let’s not forget, 60% of the car is a carryover,” Horner said. “It’s the same chassis that they were winning all those races [with] last year, so I think that the team has just done a phenomenal job.

“We’ve just got to keep that momentum going, because Mercedes are such a strong team. It’s only a matter of time before they bounce back, but we’ve just got to keep doing what we’re doing.”

Fans and press can expect more fire works from Styrian GP team principal’s Friday press conference.