Christian Horner's best man Bernie Ecclestone reveals what's next for Red Bull boss and Geri, writes JONATHAN McEVOY

Bernie Ecclestone believes peace will break out at Red Bull after the scandal that has engulfed the world championship-winning team.

The 93-year-old – Formula One’s most iconic figure and a best friend of previously embattled team principal Christian Horner – says that everything is mending after the scandal that hit in February.

Ecclestone told this column: ‘It’s peace in our time. And Christian informs me everything’s fantastic with Geri.’

That was a reference to Horner’s Spice Girl wife, Geri Halliwell, who has shown total loyalty to her 50-year-old husband after accusations of harassment made against him by a female employee.

He was cleared of the claims by an internal inquiry, the complainants allegations having been dismissed as ‘dishonest’. The woman in question has lodged an appeal, which is believed to be ongoing. She has enlisted an American legal firm to fight her corner. A final verdict awaits.

Halliwell, 51, made a public show of support by walking hand-in-hand with him in the paddock in Bahrain last month, and was again present for the second race in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, a week later.

Ecclestone, who was best man at Horner and Geri’s wedding nine years ago and brought him into Formula One to head up the then new Red Bull team in 2005, believes the controversy is dissipating and that is will soon be business as usual.

‘Max (Verstappen) seems likely to stay, and it’s like all wars in so much as people get over things and move on,’ said Ecclestone, who ran the sport for four decades, from his home in Switzerland. ‘After the Second World War you weren’t allowed to mention Germany, and the Jews wouldn’t buy anything from there. It was understandable.

‘But after not too long everyone forgets that and they are buying Mercedes. So I don’t see why anyone would want to push Christian out, certainly not as time acts as a great healer. He is doing a super job, and a few weeks can make a big difference.

‘He has Geri’s support, and the whole team is doing well. There is no logical reason to upset that balance.’

I hear that Toto Wolff is confident he can sign Verstappen, winner of three of the last four races on his march to a fourth title, for Mercedes next year.

I doubt it. Others close to the scene say there is no chance. We’ll see, but there is a sense that the worst of the Red Bull saga is abating. Good results act as invaluable balm.

Could anyone win in the dominant Red Bull? Is Max Verstappen flattered by his machinery? It is among the questions one gets asked most.

The answer is that any of the top drivers, seven or eight of them, could make a success of it to the extent they would win a world championship, but none would do so quite as conclusively as the Dutchman.

How many could win 10 consecutive races, as he did last season, or nine as he has subsequently reeled off?

History says nobody. Ten in succession is a unique feat in the 74 years of Formula One.

The pulverising nature and margin of his wins makes him the best driver of the current time. We shall return to the question of where that places him in an all-time list in due course. For now, we’ll say it leaves him in the final shoot-out for history’s No 1 spot.

If you doubt that, ponder how Ferrari would prosper this season with him in the cockpit. Well, closer.

I hear that talks are advancing to add another couple of years to the Drive to Survive deal that has introduced a new audience to the sport. Figures are holding up, reasonably, despite shelf-life closing in. The rolling arrangement runs through this season and next.

Negotiations over an extension are ongoing and likely to be concluded successfully.

This exposure walks hand-in-hand with the F1 movie that is due for release next year.

A statement on the success of Drive to Survive project is evident at every race. I saw it in Melbourne, where the crowd demographic had radically changed. It was a family event. Or a place for a lad to take his girlfriend, without her feeling she was at a male-suffocated event.

Netflix’s Drive to Survive is a brilliant initiative, lucked into by Sean Bratches, an American sports executive known for his bespoke blazers, when Liberty Media bought the sport in 2017. But a little bit of historical context should be added here.

The best televisual deal Formula One ever did was struck by Bernie Ecclestone when he put Formula One on the BBC (and more widely in Europe) in the Seventies and Eighties. With Murray Walker’s pants-on-fire decibels, the free-to-air enterprise transformed the projection of the sport, James Hunt’s championship-winning season in 1976 being a classic early case in point.

Such was the fanfare around the final race, with Niki Lauda coming back from terrible burns in Germany to contest the title, the hoopla led the front page of the Daily Mail. 

At the brutally rain-soaked finale in the foothills of Mount Fuji, the super-brave Lauda stopped, declaring it would be ‘insanity’ to persist. Hunt wrote the intro to our splash in his own words: ‘By all the laws of humanity, I should not be motor racing champion of the world.’

Still no word, by the way, on the identity of the KC who investigated the Red Bull saga. Answers on a postcard, please.

Andretti this week opened the doors on a new factory in Silverstone, preparing for their hoped-for entry into Formula One.

Their nomination was approved by the FIA but knocked back by Formula One Group (F1G), the sport’s owners, in January. F1G kept the prospect of Andretti’s entry ajar for 2028.

Perhaps F1G are right to turn the screw rather than rush potential backmarkers on to the grid. But, taken overall, a new team, not least one from America, would add cache – if up to standard.

F1G say the Andretti ‘name’ is not one that resonates in Formula One. I wonder. Mario Andretti, father of team boss Michael, won the F1 world championship, among a million other accolades, including the Indianapolis and Daytona 500s. Which are some achievements to hold in your hand when you open any argument. He was a motor racing driver of legend, as well as one of the nicest men you could meet.

As for the old Sauber team they are now called ‘Stake’. Resonate?