More than a year after his abrupt and highly controversial exit from the Red Bull Racing pitwall in July 2025, former team principal Christian Horner is finally shedding light on the exact circumstances surrounding his dismissal.
In an interview with The Guardian, the 52-year-old executive stripped away the paddock rumours and placed the blame for his exit squarely on a massive corporate power shift following the passing of Red Bull's billionaire founder, Dietrich Mateschitz, in late 2022.
Horner sacked without a reason
Despite guiding Red Bull through two separate eras of intense Formula 1 dominance - first with Sebastian Vettel and then with Max Verstappen - and collecting six constructors' championships and eight drivers' titles, Horner claims the new Austrian leadership group ousted him without providing a concrete justification.
"I think it was a feeling there was too much control in my hands," Horner told The Guardian when pressed on why his 20-year tenure was suddenly terminated. "But I wasn't really given a reason."
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull Racing, Team Principal Christian Horner
Photo by: Clive Mason / Getty Images
Horner explicitly denied rumours that internal friction with Max Verstappen or his outspoken father, Jos, directly led to his firing.
"No, it was a Red Bull decision," Horner clarified. "After Dietrich died, things changed in the leadership."
A "brutal" end to a 20-year dynasty
The timing of Horner's dismissal was extraordinarily traumatic on a personal level. Just days before Red Bull executives showed him the door, Horner's former partner and the mother of his daughter Olivia, Beverley Allen, passed away following a battle with eye cancer.
Given his personal grieving process and the sheer amount of foundational work he had poured into establishing the Red Bull Powertrains division, Horner admitted the clinical nature of his firing was incredibly difficult to digest.
"It felt particularly brutal and sad to finish in that manner," Horner confessed. "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."
Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
Taking a thinly veiled shot at the current Red Bull regime spearheaded by Oliver Mintzlaff and his paddock replacement, Laurent Mekies, Horner suggested that loyalty and grace are rapidly vanishing from the modern Formula 1 landscape.
"History repeats itself. Not all teams act in that way," Horner stated pointedly. "A lot of teams haven't delivered over the years, but you don't see the same brutality as when I left. We had pole position at the previous race."
Surviving the sacking
While Horner acknowledged the severe emotional toll of losing the team he built from a 400-person startup into a 2,200-person juggernaut, he insisted he has eventually found a sense of peace outside the paddock.
He confirmed that he has re-established a "reasonable relationship" with Mintzlaff, who recently called to thank him for laying the groundwork for the team's first fully independent engine victory in Bahrain. Furthermore, Horner revealed that stepping away from the relentless political warfare of Formula 1 provided an unexpected, albeit forced, mental reprieve.
"The last two years had been pretty tough, but it was a particularly sensitive time," Horner admitted regarding his departure. "I had an 11-year-old child grieving her mother. Nothing was more important than that."