Jos Verstappen: Red Bull F1 Team Will ‘Explode’ if Christian Horner Stays as Team Principal 

Formula One F1 - Bahrain Grand Prix - Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir, Bahrain - March 2, 2024 Red Bull team principal Christian Horner in the garage during the race. (Reuters)
Formula One F1 - Bahrain Grand Prix - Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir, Bahrain - March 2, 2024 Red Bull team principal Christian Horner in the garage during the race. (Reuters)
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Jos Verstappen: Red Bull F1 Team Will ‘Explode’ if Christian Horner Stays as Team Principal 

Formula One F1 - Bahrain Grand Prix - Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir, Bahrain - March 2, 2024 Red Bull team principal Christian Horner in the garage during the race. (Reuters)
Formula One F1 - Bahrain Grand Prix - Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir, Bahrain - March 2, 2024 Red Bull team principal Christian Horner in the garage during the race. (Reuters)

The Red Bull Formula 1 team will “explode” if Christian Horner stays on as team principal, according to Jos Verstappen, the father of three-time champion Max Verstappen.

The F1 spotlight has been almost entirely on Horner in the days leading up to the new season over his alleged behavior toward a team employee.

“There is tension here while he remains in position,” Jos Verstappen told British newspaper the Daily Mail after his son won Saturday's season-opening race in Bahrain. “The team is in danger of being torn apart. It can't go on the way it is. It will explode. He (Horner) is playing the victim, when he is the one causing the problems.”

On Wednesday, the team’s parent company dismissed a complaint of alleged misconduct by Horner toward a team employee. A day later during practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix, a file alleged to contain evidence against Horner was emailed to nearly 200 people in the F1 paddock, including Liberty Media, F1, the FIA, the other nine team principals and multiple media outlets.

The authenticity of the file, which was sent from a generic email account, has not been verified by The Associated Press.

Jos Verstappen, a former F1 driver who was Michael Schumacher’s teammate when they raced at Benetton, has been pointed to as a potential source of the file by some F1 insiders but he firmly denied it.

“That wouldn't make sense,” the 51-year-old Dutchman told the Daily Mail. “Why would I do that when Max is doing so well here?”

Horner has denied wrongdoing and said in a statement issued Thursday that he would not “comment on anonymous speculation” concerning the file.

Reacting to the ongoing controversy, the president of Formula 1’s governing body told the Financial Times that the controversy around Horner is damaging the sport, but that the FIA won’t conduct its own inquiry unless it receives a complaint.

FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem said any complaint lodged with its compliance officer would be investigated but it had not received one related to Horner’s situation.

“It’s damaging the sport,” Ben Sulayem told the newspaper, which added that he was speaking Friday after a meeting with Horner. “This is damaging on a human level.”



‘Flooding Rains’ Threaten to Dampen Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony

Paris 2024 Olympics - Opening Ceremony - Paris, France - July 26, 2024. Spectators are seen behind the Eiffel Tower ahead of the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics. (Reuters)
Paris 2024 Olympics - Opening Ceremony - Paris, France - July 26, 2024. Spectators are seen behind the Eiffel Tower ahead of the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics. (Reuters)
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‘Flooding Rains’ Threaten to Dampen Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony

Paris 2024 Olympics - Opening Ceremony - Paris, France - July 26, 2024. Spectators are seen behind the Eiffel Tower ahead of the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics. (Reuters)
Paris 2024 Olympics - Opening Ceremony - Paris, France - July 26, 2024. Spectators are seen behind the Eiffel Tower ahead of the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics. (Reuters)

The Paris Olympics look likely to get off to a soggy start.

Meteo-France, the French weather service, is predicting “flooding rains” Friday evening when the opening ceremony is set to unroll along the Seine River. But the show is set to go on as planned, starting at 1:30 p.m. EDT/7:30 p.m. CEST and should last more than three hours.

Already in the late afternoon, skies were gray with intermittent drizzle. There was a silver lining, though, with temperatures expected to stay relatively warm throughout the evening.

Instead of a traditional march into a stadium, about 6,800 athletes will parade on more than 90 boats on the Seine River for 6 kilometers (3.7 miles). Though 10,700 athletes are expected to compete at these Olympics, hundreds of soccer players are based outside Paris, surfers are in Tahiti and many have yet to arrive for their events in the second week, organizers said Thursday.

Hundreds of thousands of people, including 320,000 paying and invited ticket-holders, are expected to line the Seine’s banks as athletes are paraded along the river on boats.