Mark Hughes analysis: Why Red Bull sacked Christian Horner

F1

Christian Horner's dismissal well and truly marks the end of a wildly successful era for Red Bull. Mark Hughes examines how the team started to crumble

Christian Horner leaves F1 paddock at 2024 F1 Qatar GP

Drive to Survive star Horner has left the paddock as Red Bull boss for the final time

Clive Mason/Getty Images

Sixteen years ago at Silverstone Red Bull won the British Grand Prix for the first time, only the second victory in the team’s history, a few months after the breakthrough in China. Sebastian Vettel led team-mate Mark Webber home for a resounding 1-2, the RB6 with its newly extended double diffuser in a different league to anything else, even the Brawns which had been the revelation of the season up to this point. It was the beginning of the first period of Red Bull’s dominance of the sport and would last five years – until the hybrid formula came along to usher in a new order, one that would take Red Bull eight years to break, before then beginning its second period of domination, this time with Max Verstappen.

Last weekend Verstappen’s low-wing pole and subsequent difficult race to fifth in the changeable conditions marked the final time the team would be overseen by Christian Horner who was sensationally fired three days later (today).

“Red Bull has released Christian Horner from his operational duties with effect from today,” read a statement from Red Bull GmbH in Austria, “and has appointed Laurent Mekies as CEO of Red Bull Racing. Oliver Mintzlaff, CEO Corporate Projects and Investments thanked Christian Horner for his exceptional work over the last 20 years…. With his tireless commitment, experience, expertise and innovative thinking, he has been instrumental in establishing Red Bull Racing as one of the most successful and attractive teams in F1”

Things change. It’s not natural for everything to remain stable, even amid great success. There is always a crucial change which sets in motion the evaporation of even the most dominant teams. With Ferrari it was the decision of Luca di Montezemolo to insure himself against the future by signing Kimi Räikkonen and giving Michael Schumacher the option of staying as an equal number 1 or leaving. With Ross Brawn already having decided to take a sabbatical, that was the end of that.

Related article

At McLaren, the left-field meteorite of a rival team’s disaffected chief mechanic conspiring with McLaren’s designer almost brought the team to an end. At Red Bull, it’s difficult to pinpoint whether it was the controversy surrounding Horner’s infamous sex-texting conversations with his PA or the death of the team’s founder Dietrich Mateschitz at the end of 2022. Adrian Newey might conceivably still be there without one or both of those situations. But it’s as if once one domino was pulled, the stack began to fall.

We don’t yet know the definitive trigger for Horner’s dismissal – why it was today rather than last year or some time in the future – but there are political factions in this, both within the Austrian senior management team put in place in the wake of Mateschitz’s death and between that team and the 51% shareholder Charlerm Yoovidhya. How those factions aligned or didn’t align with Horner will have played their part in this outcome.

Mekies gets a promotion from team principal of the junior Racing Bulls team to overall charge of racing. He’s a capable guy, but this is now a complex operation, employing around 1,000 people and incorporating also Red Bull Powertrains as well as Red Bull Technologies.

With the death of Mateschitz and now the dismissal of the person who ran his racing show, Red Bull is in an extremely challenging position. The simplicity of the previous arrangement, whereby Mateschitz provided the money and answered to no-one and Horner ran the show is now well and truly gone. That simplicity was a big part of the reason for the success. Whether it’s the beginning of the end or the dawn of a new era only time will tell.