Soap opera time!

 (Formula One edition)

(In which three-time reigning world champion Max Verstappen's Sports Dad From Hell, Jos, says Red Bull team principal Christian Horner should step down because he either was or wasn't shtupping/sexually harassing a female employee, prompting Red Bull to "investigate" and then exonerate him, and now the overheated European media is howling that Max is leaving and Red Bull is falling apart, even though Max just won Bahrain by 22 seconds and Red Bull finished 1-2 same as always ...)

Whoa. Whew. Lemme catch my breath here for a second.

Now lemme say there's always drama like this in F1, which is why the "Drive to Survive" series is so endlessly compelling, not to say the best long-running soap opera since "Days of Our Lives" or "As The World Turns." But when I say "drama like this", I'm not talking about drama like this.

That's because this drama involves the most dominant team in F1, a team so machine-like it's turned the actual on-track product into a parade at the top of the grid. Max wins pole, Max wins race, everything interesting happens back in the pack. Rinse and repeat.

That sort of dominance makes the dominating force, if not complacent, at least arrogant. And thus confers a sense of entitlement in areas where entitlement should never go.

That's the story here with Horner, and, listen, let me say right up front I have no idea if he did what he's been accused doing. If he did, then he's Horner the Horndog and worse. If not ...

If not, then you've got to wonder how much of this kerfuffle is real, and how much of it is a bored press corps pumping it full of helium to keep itself from falling asleep. 

A sex scandal involving the Lord of the (Nurburg)Ring, and every other F1 venue? Trouble in paradise? The BEGINNING OF THE END OF RED BULL??

Yes, please!

Helping along this wistful hysteria, of course, is that, like all hysteria, there are kernels of truth buried within. Jos Verstappen did indeed call on Horner to quit, because he does indeed dislike the man. That's gotten Formula One chief Mohammed Ben Sulayem -- himself the target of allegations that he jimmied the results of the 2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix -- taking the unseemly action of inserting himself into the inner workings of his sport's dominant team. 

He even pulled Max Verstappen aside last weekend (with the standard caveat of "allegedly") and chastised him for not publicly supporting Horner as Sulayem requested. Verstappen, to his credit, basically told him to buzz off -- or, failing that, to investigate Horner himself.

Meanwhile, the whole Horner/Jos Verstappen rift has stoked rumors (with Jos allegedly doing the stoking) that Max will leave Red Bull for another team, even though he's under contract until 2028 and any team he'd go to at this point would be a step down. And as for Max himself ...

Well. All he wants to do is race, or so it seems.

Publicly diplomatic, he leaves you wondering what he's thinking privately.

"Dad, will you please just shut the hell up?" would be one educated guess.

"Overheated European media, will you please just shut the hell up?" would be another good one.

Either way, Max seems to be the only one behaving like a grownup in all this. Which means he wins again.

Big surprise there.