Personalities aside, there's no doubting that Christian Horner was instrumental in the huge success of the Red Bull F1 team since he was brought in at it's formation 20 yes ago.
F1 is an extremely rich and relentless sport at the forefront of motoring innovation. It relies on some of the greatest engineering brains in the world to constantly develop and improve performance.
Whatever the issues are internally, things started to unravel when Adrian Newey left. He is the undisputed master of race car design. Next to leave was Jonathan Wheatley to Audi, followed by Rob Marshall who eventually joined McLaren. Both are highly competent technicians and it is no coincidence that Red Bull's fortunes have dipped since they left.
The Red Bull team will take some time to recover from the departure of technical staff, but Horner, who led the team, will be a highly prized acquisition elsewhere.