Rumours began to circulate that the files had been leaked by the team’s young driver guru Helmut Marko (later subject to an investigation himself into the leaks) or another senior Red Bull executive potentially at loggerheads with Horner, as the pressure mounted on team principal to resign.
“It was obviously pre-meditated to cause me the maximum amount of distraction, the maximum amount of aggravation,” says Horner. “It was obvious that end goal was for me to leave Red Bull.”
After the Netflix interviewer asks “But who leaked them?” the team boss says “That’s the multi-million dollar question.”
When the interviewer infers “But you know who,” Horner simply smiles, implying that he has at least some idea.
The questions remains as to who leaked the purported messages
Red Bull
Many thought in the immediate aftermath of the controversy, which first emerged early February, that Horner would immediately quit – but this ultimately didn’t transpire.
“The higher you rise, the sharper the knives,” he tells Netflix. “I’ve reached the top of my game, and I never thought in a million years I’d have a challenge like this in my career.”