Christian Horner dismissed a report claiming that Red Bull Powertrains had signed up former Mercedes top engine man Andy Cowell.
Red Bull's new engine department which will operate out of a dedicated building located on the team's Milton Keynes campus has engaged in an active recruiting strategy, targeting in priority employees of Mercedes' HPP unit in Brixworth.
RBP has already put together a leadership foundation comprised of ex-Mercedes engineers, which has inevitably led to speculations that Cowell, who left HPP at the end of last year, could join Red Bull's new engine department.
A report claiming that the chief architect of Mercedes' engine success in F1 emerged this week, but Horner was quick to shoot down the fake news, just as he did last month when the hearsay first came to the fore.
"Obviously there’s a lot of media traction on these topics with personnel joining this obviously new venture," said Horner in Monaco.
"But I can say I was surprised to read this story this morning that apparently Andy has agreed to join us because that isn’t the case."
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was equally surprised by the fabrication, as Cowell's joining Red Bull would appear to contradict what the British engineer himself had told the Austrian with whom he frequently speaks.
"I speak to Andy every week about different things and for me it doesn’t seem that he is going to Red Bull," Wolff contended.
"But in this sport we have seen many black swans, so at the moment, what I think is he’s not going there.
“It would be a big surprise because it would mean it’s different to what we have discussed but there is nothing stopping him from taking any decision, whether he continues on his entrepreneurial journey or returns to Formula 1 in a different role."
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