Is dismissing Horner Red Bull’s gamble to keep Verstappen?

Red Bull’s shocking dismissal of team principal Christian Horner on Wednesday was both a genuine surprise and also fairly inevitable given the state of the team. How those two things can be true at the same time speaks to the weird narrative that has followed Red Bull for the past two years.

It is an unprecedented moment in the team’s story. There has never been a Red Bull Racing without him: all of its 124 race wins, six constructors’ and eight drivers’ championships have come under his stewardship, which started with the team’s debut season in 2005. He built a Formula 1 powerhouse, and his legacy as a team boss ultimately will be strong.

And yet he’s out.

Even Red Bull employees were unaware until Horner said goodbye to Milton Keynes factory staff at 10 a.m. local time on Wednesday, shortly before the news broke. Throughout the previous week, which culminated in the British Grand Prix, he had appeared in good spirits — calm and relaxed about his place at the team. But Horner’s position had long felt to be something of a ticking time bomb, even if the explosion still managed to catch the team and the F1 world completely off guard.

“As big news stories go,” David Croft, the voice of Formula 1’s world feed, posted to X on Wednesday, “it doesn’t get much bigger in F1!”

The simplest take is that Red Bull is choosing Max Verstappen over Horner for its long-term future, a roll of the dice to get him to stay amid growing rumors of a move to Mercedesa declaration to its four-time world champion that it will do anything to give him an opportunity to add to that tally. There’s not many other ways you can slice it, and no guarantee it will work in keeping the Dutchman around beyond next year, although a number of factors have come together to ultimately force the long-standing team boss out the door.

All may have been manageable on their own, but put together, they have led to the decision to make a clean break from and hit the reset button. The adage in Formula 1 is that the stopwatch never lies, and the team’s increasing struggles on track, coupled with tensions behind the scenes, have ultimately pushed Red Bull over the edge.

In 2024, Horner survived a personal scandal. Red Bull stood by him after an independent investigation into controlling and inappropriate behavior toward a former staff member cleared him of wrongdoing; the former employee’s appeal into that verdict was also dismissed. That scandal cast a shadow over the team. It deepened key divisions, most notably between Horner and Jos Verstappenfather of Max Verstappen.

Jos warned ahead of last year’s opening race that Red Bull was “in danger of being torn apart” under Horner’s leadership. Sources said that Jos and Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko had grown increasingly concerned by how powerful Horner had become within the team after the death of the energy drink’s founder Dietrich Mateschitz in October 2022. Those concerns extended further, to Mateschitz’s son Mark and Red Bull GmbH executive Oliver Mintzlaff.

Internal rifts alone were not enough to dislodge Horner.

Until the middle of 2024, Red Bull had been thriving; after Max Verstappen’s dramatic title win in 2021, the Milton Keynes-based team had romped to success in both 2022 and 2023 and appeared untouchable on track. Those successes only appeared to strengthen Horner’s position; sources have told ESPN he had stressed to Red Bull majority shareholder Chalerm Yoovidhya that he was the key reason for the team’s success this decade. It was commonly accepted that as long as Horner retained Yoovidhya’s support, his job was safe.

At last year’s Miami Grand Prix, things appeared to start falling apart — both on and off the track.

First came the departure of legendary F1 designer Adrian Neweywho is now at Aston Martin. Sporting director Jonathan Wheatley left to join the Audi project — on Sunday, he celebrated the team’s first podium since the 2012 Japanese Grand Prix. Strategy chief Will Courtenay was snapped up by McLarenwhere he will become sporting director. Zak Brown’s team is also thriving with another ex-Red Bull man in a prominent role: chief designer Rob Marshall joined in 2022 and has been instrumental in overseeing McLaren’s current successful run.

Sources have told ESPN that attempts to fill those voids have been hit and miss. The fact that Red Bull has so stubbornly dragged its heels over when Courtenay will be allowed to leave — it looks unlikely to be any earlier than midway through 2026 — hints at a team struggling to cope with its rapid brain drain in key areas.

Throughout, Horner has insisted that the team had strength in depth and could weather the storm. And he might well have been fine had things kept going well on track, but that has been where the most glaring issues have been. First there was Sergio Pérez’s struggle to even come close to matching Verstappen’s pace — Perez, known to be a close Horner ally, left the team at the end of his dismal 2024 season. Replacement Liam Lawson lasted two races before being replaced by Yuki Tsunodawho has done little better.

Of Red Bull’s 210 championship points this season, Verstappen scored 203. The failure of successive teammates to do anything with worsening Red Bull cars has vindicated Verstappen’s repeated insistence that they have been unpleasant to drive. Only the Dutchman’s sublime talent has made anything positive happen on track this season. Verstappen had defended Pérez, he’d defended Lawson and he now defends Tsunoda with the same “I told you so” attitude that betrays deep frustrations about the machinery at his disposal.

Verstappen has long been coy on Horner’s position. The four-time world champion rarely let himself get dragged into questions about the leadership of the team, but recently another topic had been thrown his way with more regularity, one that was directly linked to its diminishing success on track.

Sources have confirmed to ESPN that Verstappen has a clause in his contract that allows him to leave the team if he is lower than third in the drivers’ championship after the Hungarian Grand Prix on Aug. 3. He is currently 18 points ahead of fourth-placed George Russell. Verstappen himself refused to answer questions about his future during a packed media session last week at Silverstone, but various reports suggest agent Raymond Vermeulen and Jos Verstappen have been seriously considering the Mercedes option, should the clause open a door.

A move to Mercedes in 2026 always seemed unlikely, though — it would be hugely risky to sign a long-term contract when there is such a drastic change in the regulations coming into effect next year, which could dramatically alter the running order — but the mere idea of Verstappen jumping ship was a powerful one, and his camp hammered it home with great effect, even if the man himself did not like talking about it.

This is where things got interesting — even more so with hindsight.

In a news conference last Friday, a day after Verstappen refused to be drawn on his future, Horner said Red Bull should start getting ready for life without its star driver — whether it be next year, 2027 or beyond. It was the first time he had acknowledged the possibility of the Dutchman leaving.

Curiously, he also said that Mateschitz had told him when Sebastian Vettel was looking to leave Red Bull in 2014: “We don’t need the best driver if we don’t have the best car.” Horner talked of teams building in cycles, referencing the one that led to the run of titles between 2010 and 2013 and those won between 2021 and 2024. It very much sounded like a man saying that no one driver is bigger than the team — the team led by him, through good times and bad.

Horner’s departure suggests that Verstappen will remain with Red Bull next year — the ongoing noise from his father and agent will likely diminish significantly in the weeks leading into the summer break — but whether that’s enough to convince the four-time world champion to pledge his future to the team remains to be seen. Red Bull expects to be off the pace in 2026 — a year that will see it debut its own engine, built in conjunction with Ford — but the pitch for keeping Verstappen around until the end of his contract, which runs until 2028, might be significantly easier now that the team has removed what those close to him have long felt has been the biggest disruptor internally: Horner himself.

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The numbers behind Christian Horner’s time at Red Bull

Take a look at Christian Horner’s achievements at Red Bull after he was sacked by the F1 team.

What next for Horner?

In the drop of one press release, Horner went from being one of F1’s most influential and important people to unemployed. While he can boast significant pedigree in terms of his achievements, true influence in Formula 1 is impossible to wield without a significant role elsewhere.

With a contract believed to run until 2030, though, it may be a while before he’s wielding power anywhere in the paddock.

Two of Horner’s close relationships will likely fuel speculation about potential landing spots down the road. He is known to be on good terms with Ferrari chairman John Elkann — a friendship that resulted in one serious approach earlier this decade — and is also close with Alpine executive Flavio Briatore.

Earlier this year, Horner dismissed reports he had been tapped up by Elkannwhile Ferrari has also denied suggestions it is set to move on from under-fire team boss Frédéric Vasseur. Whether Lewis Hamilton would want to work with Horner after the acrimonious title fight between Red Bull and Mercedes in 2021 is another question entirely.

Alpine might be a left-field candidate. Taking a role on the outside, perhaps as a shareholder, was one outcome a source suggested to ESPN in the wake of Horner’s dismissal on Wednesday.

When and where Horner reemerges in F1 will be a fascinating subplot to follow in the months and years to come.