Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has joked that he has blocked Toto Wolff on his phone after the Mercedes chief claimed he is "living in his head rent-free".
Horner and Wolff have a storied rivalry, with their two teams going to war in recent years in pursuit of the F1 world title. Things came to a head during the close-fought 2021 season, which saw the pair regularly involved in heated exchanges and clashes between their drivers.
That season ended with Red Bull's Verstappen controversially beating Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton to the world title. Since then, Red Bull have dominated the sport, while Mercedes have struggled to compete with their rivals.
And when asked about his relationship with Wolff in an appearance on the Pardon My Take podcast, Horner laughed before aiming a dig at Mercedes' recent struggles. "I think he's blocked [on my phone]," Horner replied.
"It's fine. I mean, look, there's healthy competition, and it's good to have rivalry in sport. They did a lot of winning, they're a great team, and now we're doing our thing and we're tending not to look behind and looking forward.
"It's not really about Toto. It's about Ferrari, about Aston Martin. And he's no doubt got his challenges, so I'll let him focus on those. It's boring if everybody just loves each other and whatever. You've got to have a rivalry and it's got to fire people up."
Horner's comments come after his Mercedes counterpart branded him "obsessed" and a "waste of time in my life" earlier this year. "I am living in his head rent-free," Wolff told the Times when asked about his relationship with Horner.
"The guy is obsessed. Every second that I spend on talking about Horner is a waste of time in my life." Horner has previously said it is 'very easy to pull Wolff's chain', telling Sky Sports last year: "It's not personal in any way! Toto is Toto. He's done a phenomenal job with Mercedes.
"He's obviously come into the sport from a very different background to me, he's very much from a financial background. And it's very easy to pull his chain, and you can see it. Sometimes it affects him.
"So of course when you're competing, and last year was so intense and of course it was the first time he'd ever been in that situation, it's always interesting to see how people react. And when they're smashing headphones and so on, you can see that you got to them. If [criticism] bothers you, you shouldn't do the job."
