RB hired a third party, yeah. However, apparently the person they hired is currently on a holiday abroad, so things are taking longer.

I'm not sure why they'd hire somebody that wouldn't be able to fully carry out their role for a while, though.

Pessimistically, an attempt to draw this out until people have lost interest?

Optimistically, RB already has a deal with this investigator that any issues would go to him, and he just happened to be on a holiday?

Who knows.

People always act like Horner is exactly the same as other TPs, Toto in particular, but it's very much not how I see it.

TPs act like whiney babies when they don't get their way. They try to get innovations from other teams banned, they claim their drivers are angels when racing incidents occur, they engage in PR-speak, they lobby, etc. That's the sport and they'd be fools not to play that game.

But Horner, in my opinion, stoops to lows that the others simply don't.

Trying to get an unpaid safety marshall fired for (correctly) waving a yellow flag that impacted Max, accusing him of being biased for Mercedes? That's just fucking scummy, and not something the other TPs have done. Those people work hard and have to volunteer for countless other driving events before they even get the opportunity to work unpaid while F1 is visiting their track.

Saying Lewis purposely crashed Max out in Silverstone 2021 at Copse, before saying that Lewis knew a crash like that could be fatal, essentially saying Lewis tried to kill Max? Fucking scummy. You'll notice Toto never said anything like that when Max parked his car on Lewis' head at Monza.

Getting pissy about Lewis celebrating the win (at his home race, after a slew of losses, after being told Max is ok, after a pandemic that meant not seeing his home crowd for 3 years), saying it was totally classless? You'll notice Toto, Binotto, etc never questioned the character of competing drivers. It's a shitty thing to do.

Saying RB would boycot a broadcaster because they used a crash in promotional material (as all broadcasters do)? Did Alpine or Mercedes do the same when their driver's crashes were used in the same way in the same run of adverts? No. They didn't.

Christian trying to get Ted Kravitz fired because he clearly took a dim view of Abu Dhabi? Grow the fuck up. I don't care whether they're biased or not, F1 teams should not be dictating to broadcasters who they have hosting content. Did Merc ever try to blackmail Ziggo sports (Dutch broadcaster) over being way way more biased? No. They didn't. They just accepted that not everyone wants to portray them in the way they'd like to be portrayed.

I'll give him credit on being a very effective TP, you could argue the best in the business.

But the man is a dick, through and through (let's not even chat about cheating on his pregnant long term girlfriend). If RB get rid of him, I hope his successor is just as competent and competitive, but not as much of a mean-spirited shithead.