Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says they are losing an “instrumental player” after McLaren announced the hiring of Rob Marshall.
The 55-year-old will join McLaren in the new year having originally started at Red Bull during the team’s second season in F1. Horner said Marshall played a significant role in the success the team has enjoyed since then, including five constructors’ championship trophies plus a combined six drivers’ title wins for Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen.“Rob has been with us for 17 years and he’s been an instrumental player in the building of Red Bull Racing,” said Horner. “He was able to accommodate things mechanically within the car, like batteries inside the gearbox with the KERS cars back in the 2009, 10, 11, 12, 13 era.”
Although Marshall has continued to attend races this year, and collected the winners’ trophy for the team at the Australian Grand Prix, Horner said he had been moved into a role outside the F1 operation and was keen to return to one.
“He played a significant role within the team but over recent years he’s moved onto other projects and hasn’t been on the mainstream of Formula 1,” Horner explained. “After 17 years he had an offer, a significant offer, from McLaren. Whilst he still had a period of time left on his contract, he was keen to go back into Formula 1, and so we came to an agreement with him.
After agreeing terms with McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown, Horner advised the rest of the Red Bull team that Marshall would be moving on.
“We did a little thing for him at the last debrief,” said Horner. “Usually when somebody leaves the team we tell them to fuck off, with Rob it’s a little bit different. He’s a good guy and he’s just going on to a new challenge.
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“But it’s a little bit like Manchester United if you look at their team how it evolved over a period of time, Eric Cantona wasn’t still playing 17 years later.”
The limit on how much teams can pay the vast majority of its employees makes it difficult to retain some high-paid members of staff, Horner admitted.
“I think that everybody has to warrant their place within the cap and Rob was, as I say, focussed on other projects in recent years and the offer that McLaren made is probably half their cap. So you can’t blame him for wanting to go and do that.”
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said Marshall was “very keen to join McLaren” when he was approached.
“He understood perfectly our journey, our ambition. I think he understood that he could be a fundamental player in trying to make something important like bringing McLaren to the victory, so there’s strong motivation from his side.
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“I think at Red Bull they know very well the role that Rob played over time, and I think this invokes respect for people. From what I could judge from outside, I saw this level of respect from Red Bull to Rob which, observing, was good to see.”
Marshall will take up the role of technical director for engineering and design when he arrives in 2024. Three months ago McLaren announced Neil Houdley had been appointed to that role, but after Marshall’s signing Houdley will become the deputy technical director for engineering and design.
Stella said the team agreed a “solution” with Houdley when it pounced on the chance to hire Marshall.
“Neil has always been a part of the process,” Stella said. “He’s been in the conversation. He has actually played as a team player in this process. When we told Neil that we had this opportunity, which was quite unmissable, we elaborated together the solution.
“There’s so much to do in terms of engineering and design to create the right standards to design the fastest car in Formula 1, that actually we thought this is a very powerful combination, with Rob, the more of the technical authority and Neil running more of the day-to-day activities within the department. So definitely Neil was in the process.”
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Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
12th June 2023, 14:16
I have written countless times here on this proper forum how Ferrari are lagging mechanically behind RBR and how hiring Rob Marshall would probably help reduce that gap the way it did for Aston Martin when they have hired Dan Fallows. I understand if Rob would have preferred to stay in the UK, but if Ferrari didn’t make him an offer at all then they have a fundamental issue in terms of identifying their weaknesses.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th June 2023, 19:10
Wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t, I’m not seeing any improvement even with vasseur.
Nick T.
12th June 2023, 21:36
Ferrari was amazing from pit stops and strategy to performance and reliability in the Schumacher-Todt-Brawn era. So, it’s possible for Ferrari to do. However, Ferrari (+ Williams and McLaren) were literally putting in 30,000 miles a year during the season with ceaseless testing. Of all the things that would seem beneficial to return would be at least some in-season testing. The teams could probably minimize costs by selling tickets to the testint and drivess in one of their cars to young drivers like MBS Jr., Maldonado, marzipan (deliciously, like marzipan, Mazespin was recently denied entry to the UK to talk to F1 teams). What’s up with all the evil M’s?
Sonny Crockett (@sonnycrockett)
12th June 2023, 16:30
I’m not sure what the “little thing” Red Bull did for him at the debrief was, but I’m guessing it involved pies…
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
12th June 2023, 17:14
Meow!
Nick T.
12th June 2023, 21:24
That guy doesn’t look like he can live for very long though unfortunately. He also seems oddly opposite to the RBR image, which is why maybe he was only trackside in a public way for the first time ever recently.
Mog
12th June 2023, 22:09
“Usually when people leave we tell them to f!@# off, but Rob’s different. He’s a good guy.”
The usual Horner snarkiness coming through.
Marcel
13th June 2023, 9:30
“The salaries of all but the top three highest-paid individuals plus the team’s drivers are included in the cap.”
Do you guys actually read back what you have written?
The last month there as too many mistakes in the articles. Not spelling mistakes, but factual mistakes.
Pete R (@prupp89)
14th June 2023, 2:19
What’s wrong with that sentence? Or was the bold word originally something else?
Pete R (@prupp89)
14th June 2023, 2:22
Also, ironically, you wrote “as” not “are” 😂… I’m not trying to fight or anything, I just thought that was funny in a comment about a writing error.
Jazz (@jazz)
13th June 2023, 12:44
“Usually when someone leaves we tell them to f off” Unbelievable. Exactly what I would expect from Christian Horner. Wonder if that’s what he did when he left Beverley up the duff.
Nick T.
13th June 2023, 23:48
I’m going to be charitable and assume he was being facetious. It’s impossible to understand how he meant it without actually hearing how the statement was delivered. If he really did mean it that’s a pretty big character flaw.
Old Bull
14th June 2023, 11:44
A masterclass from Christian in how to slag someone off without looking like you’re slagging them off. Impressive.