Horner's engine, Lawson's seat, Slater's chance and Austin's bumps: the week's big calls

Red Bull was right to credit the man it pushed out

Red Bull pushed Christian Horner out, then thanked him when its engine won. The company relieved him of his duties after the British Grand Prix in 2025. Now the in-house engine has started winning, and Horner has told The Race that the majority shareholders and chief executive Oliver Mintzlaff congratulated him.

That's the same Mintzlaff he fought an internal power struggle with after Dietrich Mateschitz died. Horner had a difficult relationship with him while in the job, which is why the gesture carries weight.

Red Bull Powertrains was his project, at least in part. He played an important role in getting it the green light, back when people inside the company were asking why they should bother. He calls it a harebrained idea himself. The engine was built with Ford, and by his count it won on its 16th attempt. He says it has been judged the most performant engine of its debut year, and he rates it among his biggest achievements in his time at the team.

Of course he does. But the wins came, from a project his own company doubted, so the claim stands. Somebody had to own the risk, and back then Horner credited Mateschitz as a man who wasn't afraid of it. Without Mateschitz, by Horner's own account, the company is in a different place now, and we doubt today's version of Red Bull would sign off a Powertrains.

There's a sting in the story too. Helmut Marko, the former motorsport advisor, let Horner know at the end that he'd overplayed his hand in shaping the team. The same instinct that got the engine signed off may be what cost him the job.

Still, Red Bull got this right. You can push a boss out and still credit the risk he backed.

Liam Lawson is the yardstick Racing Bulls need

The sister team has a judgement call of its own waiting. Liam Lawson has done enough, and someone still wants to drop him.

He's ninth in the drivers' standings, best of the rest behind the top teams, with a healthy buffer to the next man. He's also one point shy of doubling his team mate's tally for the year. And when Red Bull needed a stand-in, they skipped their reserve and took him out of Racing Bulls instead. You don't do that with a driver you're planning to bin.

Racing Bulls still haven't settled next year's line-up, and they've got more drivers than seats. Arvid Lindblad is in the other car, and Nikola Tsolov is second in Formula 2 and waiting. The old Red Bull reflex would be to decide Lawson has had his chance, drop him, and pair Tsolov with Lindblad.

That gets it backwards. Hinchcliffe made the case on the sport's own website, and the record does the arguing for him. A known quantity is exactly what you need to measure a newcomer against. Lindblad needs a full season against that benchmark before anyone can call him a candidate for the senior team. And if he can't beat Lawson over a year, that tells you something as well.

Our answer is straightforward. Keep Lawson as the yardstick, make Tsolov the reserve, and give the junior simulator time and some tests in older cars. The team's only job this winter is to write that down before someone talks them out of it.

Audi is right to put Freddie Slater in the car now

Audi, meanwhile, has made its mind up about a junior a lot faster. Its whole academy has rested on a teenager, and now he gets the car.

Freddie Slater is 18, and he finished runner-up in Formula 3 this year with Trident Motorsport. He was the first driver signed to the Audi Driver Development Programme, earlier this year, so its early reputation sits with him. Now he drives the R26 in first practice in Mexico City on 30 October, then again in Sao Paulo a week later. That's a grand prix car on a grand prix weekend, before he's started a single race at the next level.

"Getting behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car at a Grand Prix weekend is a big moment for me and something I've been dreaming of since I was a kid," Slater said. He added that his focus would be on "doing the best job I can, helping the team with its programme and taking as many learnings as possible from both sessions."

He steps up to Formula 2 next year with Invicta Racing, a front-running team in the series, and that seat may matter more than the practice runs. Rafael Camara is leading that championship with Invicta this year, and he's off to Haas next season. So the team Slater is joining already has a driver on his way to the grid.

Allan McNish, the Audi Racing Director who also runs the programme, put it plainly: "We have seen Freddie making great progress throughout recent years, both on and off the track; it is the right time for Freddie to step up." He said the appearances in Mexico and Brazil "will give him valuable experience of a Formula 1 race weekend, and another chance to continue his development before he steps up to Formula 2 next season."

We agree with him. A rookie learns more from a session in the real car than from another year of waiting for a results sheet. Audi finds out early whether its first signing is worth building around, in its first season after taking over Sauber, and it's backing its own pick in public. Right call.

Only Mercedes gave its Austin paint a point

It's United States Grand Prix week, and the paint came out. Four teams repainted for Austin, and only Mercedes has a title riding on it.

The car's usual silver has gone blue, and the nose really shows it off. The paint promotes MANUFAKTUR, the Mercedes-Benz car customisation programme, which makes it the least Austin livery of the lot. But the team is hoping Kimi Antonelli wraps up the championship on Sunday, and that's what gives the colour a point. He and George Russell get matching race suits, and there are personalised AMG road cars to go with them. The paint is a prop in a bigger show, and that's how a one-off should work.

Aston Martin's AMR26 is a different thing: a thank-you card with wheels. It marks five years with Cognizant, a partner since the team's return to the grid and now its Global AI Services Partner as well. Lawrence Stroll called it a visible thank you to Cognizant and its people. That's honest, and it's also the whole problem, because a US weekend is for fans, not a partner's staff. Nothing in it asks the car to do anything.

Haas is running a Godzilla-themed livery for the second time this year, having already promoted the monster film franchise with a different design at the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka, so calling it a one-off is a stretch. Cadillac's special design is for its first race at the Circuit of The Americas, and a debut earns a repaint.

Paint is the cheap way to get noticed in Texas, and it only ever buys the first look. What Aston Martin needs is the look its car gets once the lights go out.

Austin has to fix the ground, not the top layer

There's one thing at Austin no paint job can hide. Max Verstappen says the bumps are out of control, and he's right.

When the United States Grand Prix came up in the press conference in Singapore, the four-time world champion joked that he would have to order a new spine. He had followed the World Endurance Championship round in Texas, the Lone Star Le Mans over the weekend of 6 September, and said he was shocked by the condition of the track.

He loves the circuit, calls it among the best layouts ever, and still rates the bumps unacceptable. His point is that the ground under the surface is moving up and down, and grinding a bit here and there is just a plaster on the big problem.

The Circuit of The Americas had a major resurfacing in 2022. This year it was resurfaced again from Turn 9 to Turn 11, and smoothed at a couple more corner entries. Verstappen thinks that's superficial, and if the soil is the problem, in his words, the circuit should have known that.

He expects it to be worse this year, because these cars run lower in corners than last season's. Several of the bumpiest sections sit in braking zones into slow corners, and a tiny bit offline, he says, you don't know what's there. His fear is that drivers will suffer "much more" spinal damage than they already have in recent years if bumps like these aren't addressed.

George Russell sees it differently. He calls the bumps just part of racing and would like tracks repaved every couple of years.

We don't buy that, not when the worry is spines. Repaving every couple of years is fine for tired tarmac, and it isn't enough for shifting soil. Opening the track up properly costs a lot of money and time, and Austin should spend both before anyone's spine pays for it.

The week's calls, and the one still open

Red Bull owned the engine risk even after parting with the man who took it, and Audi has put its academy on the line with Slater. Racing Bulls have to decide whether a known quantity beats a newcomer, and Austin has to decide whether to patch or dig.

Our view on the seat is clear: Lawson stays, Tsolov waits as reserve. The choice that matters is whether Racing Bulls back the driver with the points, or the one with the promise.