Wednesday morning's surprise announcement of Red Bull dismissing team boss and CEO Christian Horner can be seen as having wider consequences on star driver Max Verstappen's F1 future, which it may actually be the result of.
Rome wasn't built in one day, nor did the empire fall in one fell swoop either. It crumbled piece by piece, agitated by economic and social unrest, internal division, military decline and external pressure on its bulging and porous borders.
There are stark parallels with Red Bull in Formula 1, which went from a cohesive, dominant force to a team divided in camps over the past three years since the death of Red Bull chief Dietrich Mateschitz.
So, when news broke that Christian Horner was removed from his position as Red Bull Racing team principal and CEO, the timing may have been a shock, but it is crystal-clear the vultures had been circling for a long time now.
Horner's outstanding achievements over those 20 years are immeasurable, building the remnant of a failing Jaguar team into a modern powerhouse. But there has also been a growing list of factors that have contributed to this outcome, from losing star employees like Adrian Newey, Rob Marshall and Jonathan Wheatley, Horner's insistence on his huge and expensive Red Bull Powertrains gamble, and off-track rumblings.
Since then Red Bull has been overtaken by McLaren in the space of 14 months and currently sits in fourth, with both 2025 championships seemingly gone already.
Those are all signs of a downward spiral, but not necessarily a terminal decline for Horner, who has been there before when his dominant Sebastian Vettel/blown diffuser era came to an end.
He even survived controversy at the start of last year, when he became embroiled in a probe into alleged inappropriate behaviour towards a female employee, which Red Bull investigators later cleared him of.
Amid a power struggle at the squad between the Austrian and the Thai sides of the business, Horner's support of Thai majority owner Chalerm Yoovidhya (who controls 51 percent) kept him in the saddle. So, Wednesday's shock announcement can only mean that Horner has now lost support on the other side of the divide as well.
Horner's and Red Bull's dependence on Verstappen comes back to haunt them
The above reasons must have all played some part in Horner losing support, but it seems like one man has been key, and that is its number one asset, Verstappen. Firstly, that applies to the on-track performance, as one would shudder to think where Red Bull would have been over the past year without the mercurial Dutchman.
Verstappen has secured four poles and two wins in the face of McLaren domination and an ill-handling 2025 car, while team-mates Liam Lawson and now Yuki Tsunoda have been floundering, combining for seven points – all Tsunoda's – compared to Verstappen's tally of 165.
As the best driver of his generation and the reigning, four-time world champion, Verstappen also has huge leverage at the team off the track, and it is known that amid the Red Bull F1 power struggle Verstappen's entourage had nailed their colours to the mast of the Austrian side, allied with Verstappen's long-time mentor Helmut Marko. Verstappen himself still got on well with Horner and enjoys working at Milton Keynes, but it is known there has been a huge rift between Horner and Max's father Jos, who led calls for him to resign during the 2024 investigation.
And now, Horner's departure follows in the wake of fresh rumours over Verstappen's Red Bull future, mulling over mid-season break clauses that could free him up before his 2028 deal is up while holding renewed conversations with Mercedes boss Toto Wolff.
What will Verstappen do now?
There is a remote possibility that Horner's exit is unrelated to Verstappen's fate, but as the dust settles from an explosive announcement two more plausible scenarios are now emerging from the rubble.
Horner's exit could be part of a play to keep hold of Verstappen for the long-term, and a price Yoovidhya and his Austrian counterpart Mark Mateschitz agreed to pay given the recent decline; the second, more damning theory is that Verstappen has already decided now is the right time to abandon ship, and that the loss of its star asset was the final straw for Yoovidhya, meaning he could no longer protect Horner.
At last weekend's British Grand Prix, Horner stopped short of confirming Verstappen would definitely be in the car in 2026 and launched a pitch for his vision of Red Bull's manufacturer future.
"Max is a key part of our team and has been for pretty much 10 years now. The intention is to keep that going," he said. "But one day, whether it's the year after or the year after, there will be a day that there is no more Max. You always have to have that in mind, that the team always has to keep looking and investing in the future. Hopefully that won't be for several years to come, but you never know...
"Things go in cycles and sport goes in cycles. We've had two incredibly successful cycles in Formula 1, and what we want to do is build towards the next cycle. Now, of course, we want that to be with Max, but we understand the pressure that there is next year, with us coming in as a new power unit manufacturer. The challenge of that is enormous. But we've got a hugely capable group of people.
"[Red Bull Powertrains] will pay dividends. Maybe it won't be in '26, but '27, '28, and beyond, long-term for Red Bull, 100 percent it is the right thing."
A first response from Verstappen's manager Raymond Vermeulen suggests the first theory is the most plausible. “We were informed in advance by Red Bull’s management that this decision had been made,” Vermeulen told the Verstappens' favoured Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf. “It's up to Red Bull to provide further explanation regarding the reasons.
"We continue to focus on the sporting side and are looking for more performance so we can return to the top. In that respect, nothing changes.”
It also tallies with Verstappen's comments at Silverstone when asked if it would be too risky to move teams for 2026 given all the question marks around who will really be ahead of the game. "That's right," he said. "That's why I'm contracted to Red Bull." A more logical move for him would be to stay for 2026 and observe who has the best car and power unit ahead of a potential 2027 move.
Time will now tell whether Horner's departure is a way for the Verstappens to kickstart a new cycle in a familiar environment, at the organisation that gave Verstappen an F1 chance aged 17 and moulded him into the drivers' guild's undisputed ruler he is today, or whether he is ready to flee Rome's ruins and build a new empire elsewhere.
