Christian Horner has revealed how his grieving 11-year-old daughter gave him the strength to cope with his shock Red Bull sacking just a week after her mother died.
The former Formula One boss, 52 – married to former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, 54 – had just lost the job he had held for two decades when he attended his daughter Olivia's end-of-year awards ceremony.
Horner, whose dismissal in July last year resulted in a reported £67million payout, said nobody at the school knew what had happened to him earlier that day.
'I came home that evening from that meeting in London and there was a parents' evening for an end-of-year award at Olivia's school,' Horner recalled on the High Performance podcast hosted by Jake Humphrey on Monday.
'And so Geri and I went to that. And of course, it hadn't come out in the media, so nobody knew.
'But I stood there and I watched this 11-year-old little girl go onto the stage. She'd lost her mum the week before.
'And I thought, you know what, if she's got the bravery to do that, then what I'm dealing with is nothing.'
Olivia's mother, Horner's former partner Beverley Allen, had died aged 58 following a battle with eye cancer.
Christian Horner has been speaking on the High Performance podcast about how his daughter Olivia, 11, helped him cope with his sacking by Formula One firm Red Bull
Olivia is pictured between married couple Christian and Geri Horner at the world premiere of the film Victoria Beckham at The Curzon Mayfair in London in October last year
Horner said: 'That - on a day that my world had fallen apart - gave me the light to go, if she can stand up there and do that, then there's nothing that you can't do.'
Asked whether he had told Olivia how proud he was of her, he replied: 'I'll make sure she listens to this. I tell her every day. I think that's important.'
Horner was dismissed as Red Bull's team principal and chief executive in July 2025, bringing an abrupt end to a career in which he had overseen 14 world championship titles.
Newly filed accounts for Red Bull Technology have since disclosed £66.988million in compensation for loss of office, widely reported as his severance payment.
The company's accounts also recorded more than £9million in separate remuneration, taking the reported package to more than £76million.
Recalling his dismissal, Horner said he had been summoned to London for what he believed would be a discussion about marketing.
Instead, he was informed that Red Bull wanted to go in a different direction.
He said his first reaction was relief, admitting that tensions within the team had left him increasingly unhappy despite its extraordinary success.
Christian Horner (left) was speaking on the High Performance podcast co-hosted by organisational psychologist Prof Damian Hughes (centre) and presenter Jake Humphrey (right)
Horner, seen in July 2024, was dismissed by Red Bull in July last year - a decision that later resulted in a reported £67million payout
The ex-Formula One boss has praised his former Spice Girl wife Geri for helping him too in the aftermath of losing his job - they are pictured here in New York in June last year
Geri had already noticed the toll it was taking on him, with Horner saying: 'If you spoke to my wife, there was a period in time where we were winning a huge amount and she said, "I've never seen you so unhappy".
'It's almost like you get to the top of the mountain and you realise there's nothing there.
'Inevitably you take it out on your partner or the people that you love most, you offload the most.'
He added that Geri 'could see on the one hand, we're winning everything - on the other hand, I'm frustrated that I'm getting sucked into all these different dynamics'.
Geri, the mother of Horner's nine-year-old son Montague, had also warned him shortly before his dismissal that his colleagues no longer appeared to value him.
Christian recalled her saying: 'I think something's going to happen. I think that they don't want you anymore. They don't value you.'
'I knew she was right. I didn't really want to hear it.'
The couple's marriage had already endured intense public scrutiny following allegations of inappropriate behaviour made against Christian by a female Red Bull employee in 2024.
He denied wrongdoing and the complaint was dismissed following two independent investigations.
Geri publicly stood by her husband during the controversy, accompanying him into the paddock at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
On the podcast, Horner praised her for having 'balls of steel', adding: 'There's many, many that would have wilted away.'
He said her message had been: 'We're together. We're a couple.'
Despite the £67million settlement, Horner admitted his immediate reaction to losing his job had included wanting to get his own back on Red Bull.
He said: 'When I first came out of the sport, it was like, how do I get back? There's an element of f*** you to it.
'I want to prove [to] all these people - I'm going to go and take all the people and I'm going to build it up again and I'm going to go again.'
But he said his perspective changed as he spent more time with his family.
During his Red Bull career, he attended 404 consecutive Grands Prix, missing his daughter's birth, birthdays and other family milestones.
He said: 'It gave me the time to be with my family, to be with my daughter at a time that we were grieving a family member that I wouldn't have had if I was still on that hamster wheel of race to race.'
Horner now enjoys attending his children's hockey matches, parents' evenings and picking them up from school.
He added: 'You don't get that time back - and having the gift of time to have been able to spend with them, you know, I'm grateful for that.
'I'm grateful that I've had that opportunity at this juncture in my life.'