🏎️ F1: Red Bull Racing fires Christian Horner

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🏁 Christian Horner: Red Bull Racing - DNF

Christian Horner joined Red Bull Racing in 2005, the year that the team was founded, and has been the team principal ever since. During his 20-year stint, Red Bull Racing went from an F1 team owned by an energy drink to a relentless winning machine culminating over two periods of racing dominance.

The first was from 2010 to 2013, when Red Bull Racing won four consecutive drivers’ championships with German driver Sebastian Vettel, who became the youngest ever world champion. During this period, Red Bull Racing consistently won or came close to winning the constructors’ championship as well.

The second period of dominance began in 2021 and lasted till last year in 2024, when Red Bull Racing once again won four consecutive drivers’ championships with Dutch driver Max Verstappen, along with two more constructors’ championships, winning a record 21 out of 22 races in the 2023 season.

Things began to unravel for Horner and the Red Bull Racing team at the end of that record-breaking season when in December 2023 Horner was accused of sexual harassment and controlling behaviour by a female colleague. The rest of the world heard about these allegations only in February 2024, after which Horner was cleared of any wrongdoing from two separate internal Red Bull Racing investigations.

This incident, amongst others, led to the exit of several high profile Red Bull Racing staff, including car whisperer Adrian Newey, which meant that while Verstappen was winning races, his rotating cast of teammates in the second car were not. This year, even Verstappen can’t salvage the situation. As reigning world champion, he is (as of writing) third in the rankings, 69 points off the leader. Red Bull Racing are currently fourth in the constructors’ championship.

In this issue of Signpost, we’ll go into detail into what led to the firing of one of the most successful F1 team bosses of all time, by exploring how the story was reported on the Formula One website and on BBC Sport.

1️⃣ FORMULA ONE: Horner to exit Red Bull with immediate effect with Mekies taking over as CEO [link]

📢 What Formula One is saying
In typical corporate comms fashion, Formula One’s announcement of the change in Red Bull Racing’s leadership sounds like it was written by GenAI. The short, anodyne coverage is full of polite statements from everyone except Christian Horner himself.

1. 📸 Visuals

Three visuals decorate this article. The header image shows Horner talking seriously on his phone. He is against a railing and in his right hand is a mobile phone. The little finger on his right hand also has a ring. He looks serious, perhaps a bit concerned, as wrinkles liberally line his forehead and around his eyes. He has a light beard, and is wearing the Red Bull Racing t-shirt.

Halfway through the article is another picture of Horner, this time looking more relaxed as he sits on a white sofa while speaking into a handheld microphone. He is mid-sentence, likely answering a question at a press conference as he is also intently making eye contact with somebody outside the frame of the photo. Behind him is a backdrop which has the branding of ‘Silverstone Round 12’ and ‘FIA Formula 1 World Championship’. It is likely this photo is from the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Once again, he holds the ‘F1’ branded microphone in his right hand, and on his little finger is the same ring from the previous photograph. He is also wearing his Red Bull Racing t-shirt, while his beard and temples look much whiter than the previous photograph.

Finally, towards the end of the article we see a photograph of two men on a track. Both are looking off into the distance towards the right of the photo. The man on the right of the image (the new Red Bull Racing CEO Laurent Mekies) has long grey hair, along with a grey moustache and a grey goatee. He has a serious expression on his face, staring at something through his black, thick rimmed glasses. The man on the left of the picture (new Racing Bulls team principal Alan Permane) has a Racing Bulls (the sister F1 team to Red Bull Racing) headset with two telephone wire-like cables laying along his chest. His lips are pressed together tightly, almost in a frown, and his brow is furrowed. Both men are wearing Racing Bulls t-shirts.

2. ✍🏽 Words

The headline uses the word ‘exit’ to describe Horner’s move, although it says that this is with ‘immediate effect’, before naming the new CEO, Laurent Mekies, who joins from Racing Bulls, the sister F1 team to Red Bull Racing. The subheading once again calls it a ‘managerial shuffle’. The article proper uses the phrase ‘exit the squad with immediate effect’, indicating some urgency in the move. We next get a bit of history about Horner, about how he ‘held the role for some 20 years’, turning the team from ‘points scorers into World Champions’.

A quote follows from ‘a Red Bull spokesperson’ confirming the news, peppered with some thank-yous from the Red Bull corporate team, calling Horner’s achievements ‘exceptional’. The ‘managerial shuffle’ is explained further, including the upgrade of Alan Permane into the leadership position at Racing Bulls, followed by another quote from Mekies about Permane. This is followed by a quote from Permane.

❓ What it means
Nothing to see here! → this seems to be Formula One’s idea about the leadership change at Red Bull Racing. In fact, the story is portrayed in such a vacuum that you have no idea why this is happening now, what this means for the team and the wider F1 sport, and most importantly, what Christian Horner has to say about all of this. Despite the headline and the rest of the article focusing on the leaving of Horner, there is no quote from him or any perspective from him on his reasons why.

Without quite saying it, the article delicately hints at the fact that Horner was fired, but still uses more neutral words like ‘exit’, even if it’s ‘with immediate effect’. This doesn’t point the finger at who called for the exit, even if it’s clear that Horner did not ask to leave. Ultimately, this article is less about reporting the news in-depth and more about keeping the peace.

⚠️ Why it matters
Formula One is going through a bit of a period, and the good people at F1 would rather you didn’t make a big deal out of things. In 2017, F1 was sold to the American company Liberty Media, and even though 60% of the teams in F1 host their hubs in the U.K., there has been a massive push by the American owners to truly globalise the race.

This has led to not only more races in the calendar in more countries (the U.S. now has three races, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have one each, and there are feasibility studies being conducted for a race in Bangkok and the first race in Africa), but also a bigger push culturally, leading up to this summer’s big Hollywood movie starring Brad Pitt, simply called F1. The focus is clear — F1 wants to be the biggest global festival of sport.

However, under the surface some tensions are bubbling. First, the president of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), or the governing body of Formula One, is a man called Mohammed Ben Sulayem, a former rally champion from the United Arab Emirates. The Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, or the trade union of F1 drivers, have been at loggerheads with the FIA in recent years because of their alleged strict rules around swearing and an increased consolidation of control under Ben Suyalem. This is on top of the increased scrutiny that F1 is facing over conducting races in so-called ‘sports washing’ countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and a renewed focus on the carbon footprint of such a global, massive annual undertaking. The last thing F1 needs is to rehash the controversial exit of one of the most successful team principals all time.

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💥 BBC SPORT: Red Bull sack team principal Horner after 20 years [link]

📢 What BBC Sport is saying
BBC Sport provides a lot more context to help us understand the reasons behind the exit of Horner. That, and it also directly quotes from Horner’s Instagram account, along with a quick analysis from the BBC’s F1 reporter.

1. 📸 Visuals

One image is used for this article. It is a simple profile picture of Christian Horner looking off into the distance while wearing his Red Bull Racing jacket. The photo is taken outside, but apart from that it is simply a proper picture of the man looking neutral.

2. ✍🏽 Words

The headline calls it like it is, saying that Horner has been given the ‘sack’ after ‘20 years’ at Red Bull Racing. This is again mentioned in the first line of the article. Here, the article further elaborates the gravity of the situation, saying that the ‘51-year-old’ has led the team ‘since their inception in 2005’, winning ‘eight drivers’ championship and six constructors’ championship titles’. And finally, we get a reason for the exit — ‘months of declining form for the team and internal disputes at the highest level’, coming ‘17 months’ after accusations of sexual harassment were made against Horner.

As the article reminds us, ‘Horner was twice cleared of the claims’, but it seemingly set in motion this announcement all these months later. Quotes are quoted from Red Bull corporate, Horner himself, along with the current world champion and Red Bull primary driver Max Verstappen, with updates on who will be taking over from Horner.

Further down the article we get some more context — Verstappen’s future at Red Bull is also uncertain, except this is because he wants to leave, despite being ‘under contract’ for the next three years. This hasn’t stopped Mercedes from openly courting him to ‘join them for next season’. This is because of a decline in the performance of the Red Bull Racing car which ‘began in the middle of last season [2024]’. This didn’t stop Verstappen from winning ‘his fourth straight world title’ in 2024, even though he ‘only won twice in the final 14 races’ last season, along with ‘only two races this season [2025]’.

Some of this dip in performance has been because of incidents off the track, including Verstappen’s father, Jos, having a ‘tense relationship with Horner’. The sexual harassment accusation led to Jos warning that ‘the team would fall apart if Horner stayed in his role’. This was further exacerbated by the departure of ‘Adrian Newey, regarded as the greatest designer in F1 history’, who apart from the accusations against Horner was also dissatisfied by what ‘he saw as other staff members trying to claim credit for his innovations’. In turn, Horner’s response was to ‘actively’ diminish Newey’s role in briefings to the media’.

Following Newey’s out the door were ‘Jonathan Wheatley, Red Bull’s long-time sporting director’, and ‘Head of strategy Will Courtenay’, despite Horner ‘holding him [Courtenay] to his contract’.

The article wraps up with a quick insight from the BBC F1 reporter, questioning whether Horner’s sacking is ‘to protect Max [Verstappen] from leaving Red Bull, or is this because he’s left Red Bull already and this is the result of that?’ The reporter further confirms that in her conversations with Verstappen, ‘he wouldn’t say he’s definitely committed to Red Bull’.

❓ What it means
Here we get more of the story, if not all of it. And one thing is made clear: Horner has been sacked because of a dip in performance in the team and not for any other reason. As long as Verstappen kept winning there was no issue, but this season looks like the boys in orange (McLaren) will likely be both constructor and driver champions.

This also gives us a sense that in the hierarchy of world class talent, for Red Bull Racing the driver comes first. Which is why, despite losing their designer, sporting director, and head of strategy through resignations previously, Horner was removed from his role because Verstappen possibly made some serious indications of cutting his contract short and moving to a rival team. As the article says, Verstappen ‘likes to work in quiet and harmony’, and Horner has not been able to provide that environment for him for the last two years.

But there is more palace intrigue.

⚠️ Why it matters
In October 2022, Red Bull GmbH, the energy drinks company that owns Red Bull Racing, lost their Austrian co-owner Dietrich Mateschitz. This led to Horner trying to consolidate more power under him, clashing immediately with Red Bull Racing’s motorsport adviser and friend of the late Mateschitz, Helmut Marko. Verstappen, the world champion at the time and the public face of the team, came down on the side of Marko. However, while this meant that Horner was butting heads against the Austrian side of the Red Bull business, he was gaining support from Red Bull’s billionaire Thai owner, Chalerm Yoovidhya, who owns 51% of the company. Since then, it’s clear there was some loss of support for Horner from Thailand.

The second issue is that F1 requires two drivers per team, and Verstappen has been outperforming his peers consistently by wide margins, who have, like Horner, also been sacked. First it was Sergio Pérez (who was removed after renewing his contract for two years), followed by Liam Lawson (who lasted all of two races), and now it is likely that his current teammate Yuki Tsunoda will also be fired soon. Most people agree that the reason for this gulf in performance is because the cars are designed to optimise the driving abilities of Verstappen, while his teammates are left to adapt as best they can to a very difficult to drive car.

Ultimately, Red Bull Racing’s image is now one of a disparate, divided team, and even the occasional victories cannot paper over the gaping chasm of cultural cracks.

WHAT’S GOING ON? 

🚨 No stoppin’ Verstappen?

It is something special when the drama in the sport is more interesting and higher profile than the drama in the movie that was released to promote the sport (I haven’t seen the F1 movie so this isn’t a knock on it’s quality). The truth is that come 2026, F1 will face a bit of a reset as the regulations introduced by the FIA will more-or-less force all constructors and drivers to start again from zero, meaning any current advantage will be negated. Or at least, that’s the idea. The last time a revision like this happened, Red Bull Racing and Verstappen overtook the rest. Before that it was Mercedes with Lewis Hamilton.

Verstappen will have to make a decision quick, as constructors will want to lock in their drivers for the new F1 era starting next year so they can learn about each other and grow together. Nobody will want to make expensive and tedious changes halfway through a season. Which indicates just how big a call removing Horner has been for Red Bull Racing. They clearly felt cutting Horner loose was the best option, for both the short and long term.

Does this mean Verstappen has already indicated his departure from Red Bull Racing? Or did Verstappen want Horner to leave to encourage himself to stay at Red Bull Racing? Or, perhaps, is this the end of Red Bull Racing’s recent F1 dominance?

The truth, as always, is somewhere in between.
Read widely. Question thoroughly. Decide accordingly.

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It’s been a busy week of leadership change not only at Red Bull Racing, but also at:

• X (formerly Twitter) where CEO Linda Yaccarino announced her departure, and

• Apple, where former COO Jeff Williams retired from his role making way for Sabih Khan.

Was this forwarded to you? Signpost is a free weekly newsletter analysing what the media says, what it means, and why it matters. It’s free to subscribe. Alternatively, you can add me on LinkedIn.