Red Bull Racing has fired Christian Horner after two decades in charge.
The Formula 1 team announced it had removed its longtime team principal and CEO on Wednesday amid a turbulent season that could ultimately lead to the departure of Max Verstappen. Horner has been the longest-serving team principal in F1.
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“We would like to thank Christian Horner for his exceptional work over the last 20 years,” Red Bull executive Oliver Mintzlaff said in a statement. “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.”
RB team principal Laurent Mekies will take over as the CEO of Red Bull Racing. Mekies has been in charge of Red Bull’s junior F1 team. RB racing director Alan Permane will take over for Mekies as the team principal at RB.
Horner’s departure comes after Verstappen qualified on pole for the British Grand Prix despite a car that he fought all weekend. Verstappen was passed for the lead by Oscar Piastri early in the race and spun from second on a wet restart before coming back to finish fifth.
Verstappen, the four-time defending F1 champion, is third in the points standings behind Piastri and his McLaren teammate Lando Norris. Verstappen is 69 points behind Piastri and 61 points behind Norris.
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More troubling for Red Bull, however, is its spot in the constructors standings. The team is fourth behind McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes with 172 points. All but seven of those points have been scored by Verstappen as the team’s second driver performance has been a massive issue.
Liam Lawson was tabbed to take over as Verstappen’s teammate at the start of the season. However, he lasted just two races at Red Bull as he struggled with the car. Yuki Tsunoda was promoted from RB — with Lawson going back to the junior team — and Tsunoda hasn’t been faster at Red Bull than he was in the RB.
Tsunoda has scored those other seven points across three of his nine starts. He hasn’t finished better than ninth for the team and is on a run of five straight races without a point. Lawson, meanwhile, has scored 12 points over those five races and is now higher than Tsunoda in the standings.
Lawson replaced Sergio Perez after the 2024 season after Perez also struggled as Verstappen’s teammate. As Verstappen won his fourth straight title, Perez finished eighth in the standings and was 71 points back of seventh. After scoring 103 points over the first six race weekends of the 2024 season, Perez had just 49 points the rest of the way and failed to finish four races.
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The inability of all three drivers to have any recent speed in a car that Verstappen has regularly won with has highlighted the idea that Red Bull has tailored its current car too much in Verstappen’s favor. It’s not a stretch to say Verstappen is currently the best driver in F1 — or maybe even the world. He may be able to take a tractor and put it in the points. But he has a distinct and aggressive driving style that few drivers can imitate.
Where will Verstappen drive in 2026?
Verstappen could also be headed to a different team next season. The biggest off-track topic in F1 over the last month has been Verstappen’s future as rumors swirl that Mercedes could be interested in signing him. Verstappen has a deal with Red Bull through the 2028 season, but numerous reports have suggested that he has a performance clause in his contract that would allow him to leave the team after the season.
Mercedes, meanwhile, is no stranger to big signings. The team stunned F1 over a decade ago when it signed Lewis Hamilton from McLaren not long after it re-entered F1. That partnership turned out to be incredibly fruitful, as Hamilton dominated the 2010s and won six titles with Mercedes.
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Verstappen has refused to talk about his future publicly while Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has confirmed the team’s interest in signing Verstappen if he were to be available. George Russell also made it clear in Austria that Verstappen could be an option for the team next season as he negotiates a new deal with the team himself. Russell’s contract expires at the end of 2025 as he’s currently fourth in the standings and 18 points back of Verstappen.
Russell has maximized Mercedes’ car over the past few seasons as the team has fallen from its heights with Hamilton in the previous generation of car build. But Mercedes is rumored to have the best engine ahead of a 2026 season full of rule changes for both engines and chassis and it could quickly return to the top of the F1 heap.
If Mercedes could get Verstappen, would it also want to keep Russell? The two aren’t exactly the best of friends and Mercedes promoted 18-year-old Kimi Antonelli to replace Hamilton this season after the seven-time champion went to Ferrari. Antonelli is seventh in the standings and having a season full of predictable rookie struggles so far. However, Russell is still only 27 himself and has four wins in his career.
Complaint against Horner was dismissed in 2024
Horner’s firing comes a year after he kept his job following allegations of inappropriate behavior by a female team employee. The woman filed a complaint against Horner ahead of the 2024 season and it led to an independent investigation. However, that investigation concluded and the complaint was dismissed just before the start of the season as Red Bull kept the results of the investigation confidential.
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Verstappen went on to win the title again in 2024 but Perez’s struggles meant that Red Bull didn’t win a third consecutive constructors championship. McLaren took the team title in 2024 as Red Bull finished third behind Ferrari.
The man credited for much of Red Bull’s mechanical dominance also left the team during the season. Car designer Adrian Newey left the team in September to join Aston Martin for the 2025 season and beyond. Newey designed the dominant Red Bull car that helped Verstappen win all but eight races over the 2022 and 2023 seasons. He had been with the team since 2006.
Newey was also credited with designing the car that propelled Sebastian Vettel to four consecutive titles from 2010 through 2013. Much like it did starting in 2022, Red Bull was a step ahead of the competition when new regulations were introduced in 2010 and Vettel reeled off four titles in a row as he won 34 races in that span.
A former driver himself, Horner retired from driving in the late 1990s and got into racing management. He was appointed the team principal at Red Bull in 2005 when the energy drink company bought the assets of the former Jaguar F1 team, and has been the team’s only leader since its inception. In addition to the eight titles won by Vettel and Verstappen during Horner’s tenure, Red Bull won six constructors championships as Perez, Daniel Ricciardo and Mark Webber also scored race wins.
