Horner's departure shows age of the maverick F1 boss is over

The failed racer was ruthless, incredibly ambitious, often impatient and usually politically incorrect. When he took over Red Bull, tobacco title sponsorship was almost ubiquitous, grid girls were just as integral as mechanics and the idea of diversity in motor sport was largely laughed at.

It’s interesting that just as Horner became principal, perhaps the ultimate wheeler-dealer team boss, Eddie Jordan, had recently relinquished control of his eponymous team.

Before Jordan there had been other ‘mavericks’ who had done it their way – Tom Walkinshaw, who imposed his TWR philosophy on Arrows and Ken Tyrrell (whose team ran largely from a shed) were his two closest comparisons.

Ron Dennis was the corporate version at McLaren and, looking even further back, Colin Chapman did all the above but often designed the Lotus cars too.

These characters had the charisma and power to be everything to all teams. There were no CEOs or directors.

While the above-mentioned new breed are quietly competent, working away with little fuss to get the job done, with a pleasant PR sheen, their complete opposites had benefits too.

Chapman’s incredible zeal and driver brought an unprecedented level of technical innovation, and Jordan attracted a huge amount of sponsorship on the back of his electric personality.

Horner was and is a product of his time, and even in his final days as a Red Bull still came out with one-liners that always made him good for a quote.

“He’s basically making love to his ****ing exhaust pipe for lap after lap after lap, and the tyres are not dying” was his pithy assessment of McLaren’s tyre preservation, and he managed to show hilariously little grace by thanking Nicholas Latifi in an interview after the hapless Canadian’s late-race crash triggered the series of events which let to the Abu Dhabi 2021 controversy.

Horner’s behaviour arguably crossed the line at times also, and no more so was it called into question than into his workplace misconduct investigations at the beginning of last year.

The then-principal was cleared, but the whole affair had an unsavoury air about it, one which made both the Red Bull board (in the absence of late founder Dietrich Mateschitz) and new engine partner Ford were clearly uncomfortable with.

You got the impression that such episodes might have left high ranking team officials relatively unscathed – or even passed without comment – in years of far less accountability gone by, but it appears to have done lasting damage to Horner.

He tried to make the first move after the death of Mateschitz with a power grab in running Red Bull, its new engine department and the Racing Bulls junior team too all in one go.

However, the investigation scandal, poor performance on track and star driver Max Verstappen’s unhappiness with the way the team was being run spelt the end for Horner – the corporate suits countered and won out.

And with it a breed of F1 boss has now looked likely to have gone from grand prix racing forever.

Teams now apparently want an engineer who possesses a deep understanding of an F1’s car’s technical philosophy, while also having the people skills through nuanced management – not an unpredictable dictator.

F1 has changed. The budget cap now means that teams now make serious profit, being valued at $1bn or more. Previously money would be thrown away in the name of more performance, and it was all good fun. Things have got slightly more serious.

Horner crashed into the championship as the thrusting young dynamo that was part of Red Bull’s apparent ‘rock & roll’ attitude, but he now leaves because, well, F1 just doesn’t go in for that kind of thing anymore.