For a team very much accustomed to shock announcements, this was the bombshell to end all bombshells from Red Bull. After giving an emotional farewell to stunned staff at the team’s HQ at around 10am, Christian Horner drove away from the Milton Keynes campus – the site he built from the bottom-up – for the last time on Wednesday morning.
Horner’s exit after two decades as Red Bull Racing’s team principal, and later F1 CEO, would not have been earth-shattering at the start of last season. Division in the sport’s top outfit, in the wake of allegations of “inappropriate behaviour” levelled at Horner from a female colleague, was well documented.
Yet the embattled team boss was cleared twice by two independent investigations, and he was at the forefront as his star driver Max Verstappen won a fourth consecutive world championship. On the face of it, it seemed Horner had weaved his way through the storm and come out the other side, perhaps stronger than ever.
But for this news to come now, halfway through the 2025 season, has come as a shock to the whole paddock. The sport’s longest-serving team boss, who never missed a race in two decades, will not be present in the paddock in Belgium later this month for the first time since the 2004 Brazilian Grand Prix, at least in an official capacity.
The reality is that this decision has been brewing in Red Bull circles – not least the base of parent company Red Bull GmbH in Salzburg, Austria, where today’s decision emanated from – for some time. It is not the sole reason, but a power struggle within the team’s ecosystem has been at play for 18 months. Finally, the rope has snapped.
The death of Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz in October 2022, a man who backed Horner in F1 operations, marked the start of a turbulent period at the energy drinks outfit. Slightly ironic given the team were in a period of unprecedented dominance on-track. Indeed, in 2023, they won every grand prix bar one.
But the scandal that ensued prior to the 2024 campaign had ripple effects throughout all sections of the team. Horner, the 51-year-old who is married to Spice Girl pop star Geri Halliwell, always vehemently denied accusations of “inappropriate behaviour” from a female colleague. A few days prior to the season-opener in Bahrain, he was cleared by an independent lawyer. Horner insisted he was “pleased” the process had been concluded.
Except this was just the start. Twenty-four hours later, all 10 F1 team bosses and sections of the media received a Google Drive purporting to contain WhatsApp messages between Horner and the female complainant, some of a sexually suggestive nature. Its contents have never been verified as genuine, but it plunged the whole saga, and the sport, into mainstream news.
Halliwell stood by her husband, amid a dramatic raceday entrance side-by-side into the Bahrain paddock. Yet despite Verstappen’s victory on track, his outspoken father, Jos, was far from satisfied. He made his position clear: Horner had to leave, or Red Bull would “explode”.
And so, the lines in the sand were drawn. On one side, the Verstappen clan: Max, Jos, Red Bull’s long-term driver academy boss Dr Helmut Marko and parent company chief Oliver Mintzlaff. Fortunately for Horner, on the other side, he had the ear of Thai majority shareholder Chalerm Yoovidhya.
But while undercurrents of this disunity remained throughout the season – and an appeal from Horner’s accuser was dismissed – the simple notion was that things would remain in situ while the team reigned supreme on track. Halfway through last season, McLaren clearly overtook Red Bull as the quickest team but, largely as a result of his genius behind the wheel, Verstappen won the drivers’ title anyway.
Still, Horner could not stop a raft of key personnel from departing. The most high-profile was star designer Adrian Newey, now at Aston Martin. It is inescapable that Red Bull’s on-track decline started immediately after Newey announced his exit last May.
Sporting director Jonathan Wheatley, a mainstay of the team, also left for Sauber, soon-to-be Audi. Engineer Rob Marshall had also already left for McLaren, while head of strategy Will Courtenay will also don papaya colours by the middle of next year.
The house of cards was, slowly but surely, falling down.
Yet the final nail in Horner’s coffin was perhaps an obvious one: underperforming on track. At the halfway stage of the 2025 season, Red Bull are fourth in the constructors’ championship, a whopping 288 points behind top-of-the-table McLaren.
Verstappen is third in the drivers’ standings, following two spectacular wins in Japan and Imola, but it’s not an exaggeration to state Verstappen has been squeezing the very maximum from this year’s car. That being said, he still trails leader Oscar Piastri by 69 points.
And as for Red Bull’s second driver? A calamitous situation, with Liam Lawson dropped after just two races this year and his replacement, Yuki Tsunoda, struggling mightily. In fact, he finished dead-last in the last two rounds in Austria and Silverstone. Red Bull’s second driver conundrum has been longstanding; an issue Horner has been unable to fix.
But the insinuation has always been that Horner would remain in charge while table-topping results were maintained. However, the decline on-track has now been year-long. Red Bull’s happy-go-lucky popularity has also diminished, seen most blatantly at the 2025 season launch in London in February, when Horner himself was jeered by the crowd.
And ahead of an engine partnership with Ford next year, with Horner seemingly no longer able to rely on full support from Yoovidhya, Red Bull have decided now is the time to part ways.
What next? Well, ex-Ferrari engineer Laurent Mekies takes over as CEO of the racing team and is a safe pair of hands, at least in the interim. Whether he can get a handle on a temperamental 2025 car remains to be seen.
However, most significantly, the decision is likely to appease the Verstappens, particularly his father Jos. Max, this generation’s standout driver, has been heavily linked with a move to Mercedes in recent weeks for 2026. A Newey-spearheaded Aston Martin are lurking, too.
But with a £50m-a-year contract in place until 2028, and Verstappen’s reported exit clause (which requires him to be positioned below fourth in the standings by the summer break) unlikely to be met, it seems probable the Dutchman will stay where he is. Ultimately, though, the numbers on the timesheet will dictate his future. Winning is what drives him; nothing else.
Yet beyond Verstappen, what is perhaps most intriguing now is to see what Horner’s next foray is. He joined F1, taking over the defunct Jaguar outfit, as the youngest ever team boss at 31, and leaves with 124 wins, 287 podiums and 405 races to his name. Despite his recent tag as the sport’s pantomime villain, his success speaks for itself.
Could he move to Ferrari? Horner has been linked with the sport’s most fabled team numerous times over the years, most recently last month. Horner working with Lewis Hamilton in red? That would certainly be box office. Alpine, based close to his home in rural Oxfordshire, could also come calling.
But frankly, given the abundance of interest in his career and personal life over the last 18 months, it would be a surprise if Horner did not take some time away to reflect, on what has been a monumental, topsy-turvy and at times controversial ride in the modern-day sporting circus that is the Formula One paddock.
