Christian Horner’s demise: A fight with Max Verstappen’s dad ends in tears

After 20 years, eight drivers’ titles, six constructors’ titles, and 124 race wins, it all ended with a tearful speech in front of the entire workforce at the Red Bull Racing factory in Milton Keynes on Wednesday morning.

Well, not the entire workforce. It is understood Red Bull chief Oliver Mintzlaff and motorsport adviser Helmut Marko decided to stay in the Racing Bulls factory next door.

Former Red Bull team principal Christian Horner.Credit: Getty Images

Christian Horner said what an honour it had been leading the team, building it up from the ashes of Stewart Grand Prix and Jaguar into Formula 1’s version of the All Blacks.

According to witnesses, many of whom have never known life at the factory without Horner at the helm, there was sustained applause at the finish. Even a few tears from Horner himself and members of the staff. But it has felt for some time as if the situation at Red Bull Racing would end in tears.

When Jos Verstappen warned last year that the team risked being “torn apart” if Horner stayed in situ following his “sexting” scandal, it fired the starting pistol on a civil war from which there could be only one survivor.

What Verstappen snr was basically saying was: “Either Horner goes or my boy goes – sooner or later.”

That threat has been delivered.

While Red Bull were winning – and they managed to claim the drivers’ title last year thanks to their dominant form at the start of the season and then Max Verstappen’s sheer brilliance – Horner was safe. He was, after all, cleared by two investigations and had the backing of Red Bull’s majority owner, Thai businessman Chalerm Yoovidhya.

Horner’s relationships begin to fracture ... again

But that success was only papering over the cracks. With the team currently going through a lean spell on the track, and with the prospect of further lean times to come, the poison began to spread again this year.

Horner’s relationship with Verstappen snr and Marko began to fracture again. The shift in atmosphere when Jos, in particular, attended races was palpable. He has not done that so much of late, having been competing in rallying for much of the past 18 months. But he was there at Silverstone last weekend.

Christian Horner and Jos Verstappen in Bahrain.Credit: Getty

After his son finished fifth in the race, multiple witnesses in the Red Bull garage saw him get into a heated row with Red Bull’s director of communications, Paul Smith, and then with Horner as well. It is understood the disagreement centred on Smith’s communications with the media, who he spoke with and what he was briefing.

Smith was also placed on gardening leave this week, along with Oliver Hughes, Red Bull Racing’s group chief marketing and commercial officer. Both were seen as staunch Horner allies.

At the same time, the power battle with Austria, which has been going on since the death of Red Bull co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz in 2022, returned to the fore. Horner was not just chief executive and team principal of Red Bull Racing, he headed up the Powertrains and Advanced Technologies businesses, too. The marketing of both teams was also run in-house.

Red Bull Austria first proposed spinning off the marketing for Racing Bulls, Red Bull’s “sister” team in F1, earlier this season. Horner was then spotted heading to a key meeting with Mintzlaff following a desperately disappointing home race in Austria two weekends ago, where it was proposed that Red Bull Austria take full control of marketing for both teams.

Even then, there was no inkling that Horner would be sacked so abruptly. The threat of Verstappen departing was seemingly the final straw.

That threat, which has been hanging over the team for 18 months, undoubtedly focused minds, not least that of majority owner Yoovidhya.

The Thai businessman was a notable absentee from last week’s annual pre-Silverstone charity event, jointly hosted by Horner and his wife Geri Halliwell-Horner, in aid of Red Bull’s spinal injury foundation charity Wings for Life.

Max Verstappen (left) and Horner celebrate the win at Imola in May.Credit: Getty Images

Yoovidhya backed Horner for as long as he could but has clearly decided things can no longer go on as they are.

Horner’s sacking seems to be an attempt to keep Verstappen onside, although, unlike his father, he never appeared to have a personal issue with his team principal. And the irony is, even if Verstappen stays next season, he may well leave in 2027, depending on the team’s competitiveness next year.

‘People are just dumbfounded’

Either way, faced with the prospect of another year or more of internal strife and politics, Red Bull’s overlords have acted.

Horner is understood to have been summoned to a meeting with Mintzlaff and Marko in London on Tuesday, where he was told he was to be “relieved of his operational duties” but was still technically an employee (pending an enormous pay-off, it is presumed, given Horner had more than five years left on his contract).

Horner told senior management and then addressed the team on Wednesday. There is a poignant element to the timing of this, with Horner’s ex-wife Beverley, the mother of his 11-year-old daughter Olivia, and with whom he had long since reconciled, dying last week after a long illness. The funeral will be held next week.

“It was pretty emotional,” said a team source. “Most people have never driven through those gates without Christian in charge. People here are just dumbfounded really.”

As is the sport. Red Bull enjoyed one of the most successful eras in F1 history, with Horner undeniably a shrewd team principal, whatever else one might think of him.

Red Bull Racing consultant Helmut Marko.Credit: Getty Images

He assembled and ran a brilliant team, with Adrian Newey the creative genius, backed by a benign billionaire in Mateschitz, and then perhaps even more impressively kept it together and went on another winning run after Mercedes’ years of success.

It all came crashing down in the end, amid rancour and division and hubris, with Newey leaving as well as other senior figures such as sporting director Jonathan Wheatley and chief engineering officer Rob Marshall.

It remains to be seen where the team go from here, whether other senior figures depart.

But it feels like the end of an era.

Telegraph, London

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