Horner breaks silence on 'brutal' Red Bull sacking, blaming Mateschitz's death for power shift

Christian Horner has broken his silence on the circumstances of his dismissal as Red Bull Racing team principal, saying he was never given a formal reason for his exit and blaming a fundamental shift in the team’s corporate leadership following the death of founder Dietrich Mateschitz in late 2022.

Speaking to The Guardian more than a year after his abrupt departure from the Red Bull pitwall in July 2025, the 52-year-old described the end of his 20-year tenure as “brutal” and “very painful.”

“I think it was a feeling there was too much control in my hands,” Horner said. “But I wasn’t really given a reason.”

Horner oversaw two distinct eras of Red Bull dominance in Formula 1 — first with Sebastian Vettel and then with Max Verstappen — accumulating six constructors’ championships and eight drivers’ titles across his time in charge. Despite that record, he said the new Austrian leadership group, which emerged after Mateschitz’s passing, moved to remove him without explanation.

“After Dietrich died, things changed in the leadership,” Horner said, explicitly dismissing suggestions that friction with Verstappen or his father Jos had played a role. “No, it was a Red Bull decision.”

The timing of his dismissal compounded the difficulty. Just days before Red Bull executives informed him of his exit, Horner’s former partner Beverley Allen — the mother of his daughter Olivia — died following a battle with eye cancer. Horner said the clinical manner of his firing, arriving in the middle of a period of intense personal grief, made it especially hard to absorb.

“It felt particularly brutal and sad to finish in that manner,” he said. “It was painful. Very painful. I didn’t really process it till a month later because, in the immediate aftermath, I focused on supporting my daughter through a hideous period.”

Horner also took an implicit shot at the current Red Bull regime, led by Oliver Mintzlaff, and his replacement in the paddock, Laurent Mekies, suggesting that loyalty had become a diminishing currency in the modern Formula 1 environment.