TROUBLE AT THE TOP

Following the sad death of Red Bull magnate Dietrich Mateschitz last year, old certainties about the company’s sporting activities are coming unstuck. Red Bull Racing might be dominating on track, but junior team AlphaTauri is in the midst of an identity crisis – and the competitive doldrums. Rumours swirl of Mateschitz’s appointed heir not getting on with senior figures in the Red Bull motorsport empire, and that – whisper it – he has little or no interest in Formula 1. Is AlphaTauri team principal Franz Tost’s departure a portent of things to come?

WORDS ALEX KALINAUCKAS

PICTURES All dynasties fall. And when they do chaos and, historically, even bloodshed follows. Right now in Formula 1, a potential political thriller is in the offing, surrounding the succession plan of the company which owns one of the super-teams: Red Bull. But while any Game of Thrones-style bloodletting would be metaphorical only, even in the ‘Piranha Club’, some very famous motorsport names could already be facing the consequences of regime change. As with many past examples of great houses falling, this all started with a patriarch’s demise. Red Bull magnate Dietrich Mateschitz’s health had been declining for months before his death in October 2022; that sad development finally came on the Saturday of the US Grand Prix and yet visibly shocked even the infamously undemonstrative Max Verstappen. The next month, Mateschitz’s son Mark…

You're reading a preview of

GP Racing UK (Digital) - 1 Issue, June 2023

DiscountMags is a licensed distributor (not a publisher) of the above content and Publication through Zinio LLC. Accordingly, we have no editorial control over the Publications. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers or other information or content expressed or made available by third parties, including those made in Publications offered on our website, are those of the respective author(s) or publisher(s) and not of DiscountMags. DiscountMags does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, truthfulness, or usefulness of all or any portion of any publication or any services or offers made by third parties, nor will we be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on information contained in any Publication, or your use of services offered, or your acceptance of any offers made through the Service or the Publications. For content removal requests, please contact Zinio.