Christian Horner has been sacked as Red Bull team principal, bringing an end to his hugely successful but often fraught 20 years as one of the primary powerbrokers in Formula One.
Horner is to be replaced with immediate effect by Laurent Mekies, the French engineer who formerly worked as Ferrari’sracing director and more recently ran the Racing Bulls operation, Red Bull’s sister team in Formula One.
Red Bull have also axed two staff members who were seen as allies of Horner. Paul Smith, director of communications and social media of Red Bull Racing and Red Bull Technology, and Oliver Hughes, group chief marketing and commercial officer, have both followed him out the door at Milton Keynes.
The decision comes 17 months after Horner was embroiled in a “sexting” scandal involving a female member of staff. He was subsequently cleared of coercive behaviour by an internal investigation ordered by Red Bull’s parent company in Austria and carried out by an independent barrister. But the shadow of that controversy has never truly lifted.
Speaking shortly after Horner’s exit was announced, the father of the woman who made allegations against the former Red Bull chief said “the right thing had happened”.
“It’s been all over the news and people know what took place,” the woman’s father told the Daily Mail.
Asked if his daughter is still working in F1, he replied: “You’ll have to find out for yourself, I don’t want to go into details but she’s not involved with [Red Bull].”
In particular, Horner fell out badly with Jos Verstappen, the father of his star driver, four-time world champion Max Verstappen, and also with Helmut Marko, the Austrian motorsport adviser and confidante of late Red Bull co-owner and founder Dietrich Mateschitz.
In the immediate aftermath of the scandal, Jos Verstappen, a former F1 driver, publicly called for Horner to go, saying that the team could “not go on the way it was” and adding that they would “explode”, such was the tension.
Horner denied the accusations throughout and his wife, the former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell-Horner, stood by him. He was subsequently cleared by a second investigation last summer, following an appeal from the complainant. But he and Verstappen snr remained at loggerheads and the tension when the latter attended races was palpable. The two were seen having a heated conversation following Max Verstappen’s fifth place at Silverstone last weekend.
Geri Halliwell-Horner with her husband Christian Horner. Photo / Netflix
Verstappen future plunged into fresh doubt
Red Bull are performing relatively poorly on the track this season – they have had two wins this year, more than any team apart from McLaren, but by their recent standards, that is below par – and have suffered the loss of key staff, including Adrian Newey, arguably the greatest designer in F1 history. There is also uncertainty over how they will fare once next year’s huge regulation changes come into effect, in particular the move to their own Red Bull power unit – and it appears Horner ran out of road.
The future of Max Verstappen will also no doubt have played a big part in the decision. Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff openly courted the Dutchman at the height of Red Bull’s crisis last year and recently admitted he was still talking to the 27-year-old about a potential drive.
While it looks as if Verstappen will stay for 2026, there is no guarantee of that. The Dutchman has a contract with Red Bull until 2028, but is understood to have an option to leave this summer, should he fall out of the top three. Even if he stays, he could well jump ship the following year, once he has seen which team have the fastest car. The danger of losing Verstappen to their rivals will no doubt have focused the minds of the Red Bull GmBH board and of their majority shareholder, Chalerm Yoovidhya.
The Thai businessman has been a big supporter of Horner’s and stood by him all through last season. But he may have changed his mind or bowed to pressure.
Horner had cut a besieged figure at recent races, the pressure mounting because of Verstappen’s future and the hugely lopsided nature of the team’s displays, with teammates Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda often failing even to finish in the points.
‘Forever part of our team history’
In a statement, Red Bull managing director Oliver Mintzlaff announced: “We would like to thank 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 Formula 1. Thank you for everything, Christian, and you will forever remain an important part of our team history.”
Under Horner’s two decades of leadership, Red Bull won eight drivers’ titles and six constructors’ championships, as well as 124 grand prix victories and 287 podium finishes.
Sky Sports F1 pundit Martin Brundle said he was sad to see Horner go. “I don’t think it’s completely out of the blue given things that have been going on, and the sort of [language] you’re getting out of Team Verstappen and others,” he said.
“I’m quite sad about it, if I’m honest. I consider Christian a friend and he has done an incredible job there for 20 years, won an awful lot of races, won world championships for drivers and the team.
“He took it from what was the Stewart team, through Jaguar, and it was struggling, to a massive campus in Milton Keynes and an awful lot of success and a trophy cabinet. But, you know, it’s not been difficult to feel in the Formula One paddock, and to see and to hear, that things were not particularly rosy.”
Who is Laurent Mekies, new Red Bull CEO?
Frenchman Mekies replaces Christian Horner as Red Bull CEO, having been the team principal of Racing Bulls. They are Red Bull’s junior or “sister” team, formerly known as RB, AlphaTauri and Toro Rosso.
Although the step up is enormous, he arrives having revived the fortunes of Racing Bulls since his appointment in 2024 and has a lengthy history in Formula One. Aside from his time at Ferrari, however, most of his roles have been with teams further down the grid.
Starting out as an engineer in the early 2000s, Mekies worked at Arrows – where Max Verstappen’s father Jos Verstappen was a driver – and then Minardi. He had a lengthy stint in Faenza, who as the perennial back-markers became Toro Rosso after Red Bull’s buyout of the Italian team. He eventually became chief engineer at the team.
From there he took a role with motorsport’s governing body, the FIA, as safety director, before moving back to Italy with Ferrari, initially as sporting director and then deputy team principal and racing director in 2021, under Mattia Binotto.
Mekies left Ferrari for RB at the start of the 2024 season. Results and performances have certainly improved at Racing Bulls since Mekies’ arrival, despite a merry-go-round of drivers caused by the ins and outs at Red Bull. The job he faces – turning around a team in crisis – is no small task as they look to return to the summit of the sport under the new regulations, and hang on to their most valued asset: Verstappen.
