Christian Horner Out at Red Bull
Christian Horner has been sacked, effective immediately from Red Bull.
Wow.
To say this news is shocking would be an understatement. Formula 1 insiders like Martin Brundle were blindsided by the news. Even with him qualifying, saying there were reasons why he could see it, it was still nonetheless nothing he expected. Brundle was also able to confirm with Horner himself that the news came as a shock to the now former Red Bull Racing CEO and Team Principal.
But, was it all that shocking? The timing might have been suspect, absolutely. But given the recent developments at Red Bull over the last 18 months, you can’t be all that surprised that somehow Red Bull proper and their brass finally pressed the eject button on Horner.
It all started to unravel 18 months ago with Horner being accused of inappropriate interactions with a female employee with the team. He was cleared of charges both internally and externally, but the “ick” of that scandal, along with some albeit unverified WhatsApp messages put a stain on the team going into 2024.
At the beginning of the 2024 campaign, all seemed to be business as usual on track though. Max was winning. Even Checo Perez was still performing well in the car. Then everything changed once McLaren seemingly woke up from their slumber and have not looked back since, going on to win the 2024 Constructors Championship and looking to cruise to another one in 2025. Max Verstappen was able to hold on and win the Driver’s championship in 2024 due to building up a massive lead in the beginning of the season and doing just enough to hold off Lando Norris. However, this was just the beginning of the slide.
The brain drain had already started at Red Bull, and internal fissions were becoming more like fault lines. Adrian Newey, seen as the master behind the scenes of the success of Red Bull’s car over their championship runs, left the team in 2024 and started working with Aston Martin in 2025. Jonathan Wheatley also left the team at the end of 2024 ending his tenure as Red Bull’s Sporting Director. He now finds himself at Sauber, soon to be Audi.
These amongst other senior leadership departures would inevitably cause some shake ups. But that wasn’t necessarily being seen on track in an overt way, despite the obvious dip in form at the end of 2024.
It has been a poorly kept secret that Red Bull has been designing a car to suit Max for the better part of about 5 years or so now. Given Max’s unique driving style and the clear favoritism shown to the Dutchman (with good reason some would argue), other drivers have struggled to adapt to the seat and car. Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, Sergio Perez, Liam Lawson, and now Yuki Tsunoda have all been in that seat. Perez was the most successful, but also inarguably the most seasoned of the drivers to pair with Max since Daniel Ricciardo. He perhaps had slightly more input on car development than others, but was still ousted at the end of 2024.
This favoritism did not take away from overall performance. After all, with the help of the seasoned Checo and otherworldly Max, Red Bull was able to win 2 Constructors Championships in 2022 and 2023. Max also book ended this with Drivers Championships in 2021 and 2024 for a run of 4 straight. All of this, again was with somewhat stability in the seat with Checo providing legitimate assistance to Max in 2021. But without a somewhat stronger presence in the second seat, all focus seems to have shifted to Max in 2025, and we have seen the results.
Is all of this Horner’s doing? Maybe not technically, but as the leader, it was allowed to happen under his watch. The team has catered their car towards Max so much that other drivers find it almost impossible to drive effectively. To put a finer point on this, with the exception of the much older Checo Perez, all of the other former Red Bull drivers still have seats in Formula 1, and are performing relatively well with those respective teams. And Checo might return to the grid in 2026. Is this an indictment on management of drivers or technical favoritism? Hard to say, since we have no official reasons as to why Horner has been let go.
Despite Red Bull catering their team seemingly for one driver, Horner’s relationship with Max and Max’s “camp” has been one of contention, especially after the passing of the co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz. The Austrian owned corner of Red Bull backed Helmut Marko and Max’s biological father Jos, while the Thai coalition backed Horner, have been at odds since. This rift has been seen in public in recent years, and has also led to speculation about Max’s long term prospects with the team.
Toto Wolff and Mercedes have been openly flirting with Verstappen for a little over a year now, and noise about the potential switch for the Dutchman from Red Bull to Mercedes have been getting louder, not quieter. It also does not help that despite some truly heroic drives from Max and technical work from the team on race weekends, Red Bull currently sit 4th in the Constructors Championship and Max is sitting a distant 3rd in the Drivers Championship.
Since Red Bull and Horner have neglected to give us reasons for the mid season sacking, all we have is speculation. But the timing seems suspect. We are only a few weeks out from the Formula 1 summer break, so why did this move need to happen right away? Replacements have already been put in place for Red Bull and the sister Racing Bulls team, but those seem to be temporary pending performances.
With the news still being only a few hours old, there’s still a lot more to come out. There will also be a lot more fallout. But Christian Horner being unceremoniously sacked by Red Bull 3 days after the British Grand Prix was not on anyone’s bingo card.
After 20 seasons with the team and 8 Drivers and 6 Constructors Championships, Horner leaves not in absolute disgrace, but certainly not in the way many would have predicted.
Who knows. Could we see him pop up within the next couple of years at another team? Perhaps completely new formula 1 team Cadillac would take a swing at the seasoned Team Principal? It all remains to be seen, and we will all be watching with great anticipation.
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