Christian Horner stressed the positives at the end of his 406th and – we now know – final race in charge of Red Bull.
There wasn’t a great deal to be positive about. Max Verstappen had taken pole position but, racing a dry-focused set-up on a wet day, went off several times and could only salvage fifth place. The team’s other car was last for the second race in a row.
“Focus on the positives,” Horner exhorted. “We’ve got pole position here. We’ve got performance on the car from the upgrade that we brought, we were able to balance it for qualifying at a track that’s very heavily aero-dependent.
“We got unlucky with the weather today, it was worth a shot but didn’t pay off so we’ll focus on the positive. We know where we need to improve to keep moving forward. We have out-scored George Russell.”
The reference to Russell was striking. Verstappen would surely be more concerned about losing points to the drivers ahead of him than beating those behind.
But the fact he out-scored Russell was significant because of the reports regarding Verstappen’s exit clause. It has long been rumoured that Verstappen can free himself of his long-term Red Bull deal at the end of this month if he isn’t in the top three of the championship.
Arriving at Silverstone, Verstappen lay third but only nine points ahead of Russell. Moreover, he had lost 30 points to the Mercedes driver over the previous three rounds. The world champion doubled that margin on Sunday; hence Horner’s particular relief at out-scoring Russell?
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Regardless, just three days later Red Bull have sensationally confirmed Horner’s departure. This is seismic news: Horner has run Red Bull since they arrived in F1 in 2005 and just two years ago guided them to the most dominant championship success the sport has ever seen.
Why have things soured so quickly, and does this development tell us anything about Verstappen’s future at the team?
The tensions between Verstappen’s side of the operation and Horner’s burst into the open last year when the Red Bull team principal became the focus of accusations over his conduct. Two internal investigations cleared Horner of inappropriate behaviour towards a former staff member.
But while this was going on Red Bull also suffered a series of high-profile departures, capped by the loss of design ace Adrian Newey. Verstappen’s father, ex-F1 racer Jos Verstappen, publicly criticised the team’s performance.
Prior to last weekend’s race, fresh reports surfaced alleging the Verstappens were pushing for Horner’s exit and a reorganisation of the team’s management. This was the subject of the first question put to the world champion when he spoke to written media at Silverstone last week.
“Oh, I don’t know anything about it,” Verstappen replied. Six days later, Horner is gone.
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Over his two decades running Red Bull, Horner had moved into a uniquely powerful position as both team principal and CEO of an entry which will become a manufacturer team next year. Verstappen would not be drawn on whether he or his management team felt Horner’s responsibilities should be shared more widely within the team.
“It’s always easy to say, when things are going well, ‘ah, this is the management that works’,” he said. “If you asked me the question, or you asked people the question in ’23, what is the best way, then you’d say, ‘oh well Red Bull is doing fine so probably it works all good.’
“It’s always easy to blame it on that. But I don’t think that’s something that I have to say here that is negative or not.”
Inevitably, Horner said he saw no reason to make any changes. “It’s a set-up that’s worked incredibly well for us on track and off track. We have a very tight senior management, a very strong structure. We’ve got strength in depth.
“We don’t feel, and I certainly don’t feel, that there’s a need to change or tune it.”
But change has come, and the smoothness with which Red Bull’s succession plan for Horner has clicked into place suggests it had been planned for a while. Laurent Mekies transfers from junior squad Racing Bulls while that team’s former sporting director Alan Permane steps up as his replacement.
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As Red Bull’s plight deepened, Verstappen has long been rumoured to be considering cutting his contract short before it expires in 2028. Potential targets included Aston Martin, where he would be reunited with Newey and the Honda engines which powered all of his world championship-winning cars, or Mercedes, who have somewhat inevitably been tipped as the biggest winners from F1’s rules changes next year.
However barring a surprise result in Spa, Verstappen looks unlikely to trigger that exit clause. Russell – whose seat would be most threatened by a Verstappen move – said last week he saw an “exceptionally low” chance he would be without a drive next year.
The world champion has been consistent in his desire for a competitive car and preference to remain at Red Bull. The latter is not hard to understand given the success he’s had there and the difficulty other drivers have had adapting to new teams after long spells elsewhere (case in point: Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari).
But Red Bull’s performance has slumped sharply in the last 12 months, during which time Verstappen has won just four races – a huge fall from the 19 he claimed in 2023. Whatever else might be going on behind the scenes at the team, Red Bull’s replacing Horner sends a clear signal to Verstappen that there are no lengths it won’t go in order to get him back to the front.
What today’s development makes clear is that if Verstappen is therefore going to remain in place for 2026, Mekies now faces the daunting challenge of giving him a car which will convince him to stay.
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