It's been nearly a week since we at AZM learned that Red Bull had fired Christian Horner from his role as Team Principal, and at the time we had no idea why he lost his job, but nearly a week later we're still uncertain. At first I thought it might have had to do with the previous allegations of misconduct towards a female employee, but that was over a year earlier. Since then I've sniffed around and am still in the dark, grasping only rumors, speculation, and theories.
I will admit that I'm not a fan of Christian Horner, but that doesn't matter. I still believe firmly in fairness, so if he was fired unfairly then I still have a problem with that, regardless of personal views of him. It's similar to my view of Max Verstappen, as I don't care for him either but I still have to give him due credit for being very talented. In both cases, it's their personalities and attitudes I don't respect, but it would be wrong to treat them unfairly regardless of my take on them.
Reportedly, former driver Helmut Marko, an advisor to the Red Bull parent company, was present at the firing meeting. While the firing was a surprise to Horner, allegedly at least some within the team were aware that it was coming for some weeks. I don't know how much influence Marko had on the decision to release Horner, but relations between Marko and Horner have been strained, and Marko is an Australian that advises Red Bull, also Australian.
Supposedly one major reason for dropping Horner is Red Bull's fall from on high, currently struggling with a car that's borderline undrivable. Max Verstappen has driven it to some solid results, but this is due to his skill as a driver, for which I again give credit despite my displeasure with his personal character. His teammate typically struggles much farther back, as the car is a beast. This is after years of Red Bull producing dominant cars that any driver would dream of driving.
This feels unfair to me. Again, I'm not a fan of Horner's personality, but that doesn't change that he deserves to be done fairly. No team has been on top forever. They all rise and fall. Sometimes some are phenomenal for a while but that fades away. Red Bull, McLaren, and Williams have all had their times on top as the car to beat, as well as time at the back. It's a highly competitive sport, and everyone is investing hundreds of millions of dollars per team per season trying to catch up. Red Bull has lost some significant people, including Adrian Newey who is a long-time legend in Formula 1.
Gerhard Berger weighed in with his own take on it. He appears to believe that the threat of losing Max Verstappen may have been the straw that broke the camel's back. As we've already stated, it's really only the great skill of Verstappen that has dragged a mediocre car farther up the field than it deserves, and the loss of Verstappen would be disastrous for the team. Technically, Verstappen is signed through 2028, but he could use a performance clause to escape to another team if Red Bull isn't making him happy, and there's no doubt about him being unhappy with the car right now.
The hypothetical loss of Verstappen would no doubt be horrible for Red Bull. The 2025 season began with Liam Lawson as Verstappen's teammate, and after poor performance from Lawson he was replaced with Yuki Tsunoda, who hasn't been doing any better. There's probably very few drivers that could get the sorts of results that Max has wrung from the RB21. There's plenty of butts that could fill Verstappen's seat, but they're unlikely to do any better than the mid-field results we've seen from Lawson and Tsunoda. This would mean both cars finishing 10th or 15th, or worse, instead of one threatening for podiums.
Again, as bad as that is, is it fair to toss Horner aside for it? Is it really his fault? Would anyone else in charge of the team have realistically done any better?
I've also seen discussion of the aforementioned allegation of misconduct. As previously stated, that's been over a year ago. However, evidently that hasn't stopped it from creeping back up. It would be fair game had he been found guilty, but he was not. I wasn't there for whatever did or didn't transpire, so I have no way of knowing whether he was truly guilty or not, but I can't blame him for misdeeds that as far as we know were never done. In the US you're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, and while this isn't a US issue I feel the principle still stands as just regardless of where you are.
We're not talking about any old random Joe here. As much as I dislike him, Christian Horner has not only spent twenty years with the team but he's presided over a great deal of success over those many years. He's seen them through six constructor championships, eight driver championships, 124 race wins, 287 podium finishes, and a list of assorted records. Surely this must be worth something. Alright, so this year's car isn't great, but is it fair to dump all the blame on Horner?
Jeremy Clarkson was at the recent British Grand Prix, and he spent some time with Christian. Clarkson famously found himself unemployed from Top Gear several years ago and felt he could relate to Horner, and called him upon hearing the news of his termination. Clarkson felt that his firing from Top Gear wasn't an end for him but rather opened the door to new prospects, and he went on to host The Grand Tour and now Clarkson's Farm. He suspects much the same for Horner, that while this marks the end of his Red Bull chapter, we turn the page to Christian's next chapter. I hope he's right.
