LONDON. — Christian Horner gave an emotional farewell to staff after being sacked as Red Bull boss on Wednesday and said leading the team had been the biggest privilege of his life.
Sky Sports television ran a video clip of the gathering at the Milton Keynes factory with the 51-year-old addressing the team for the last time as principal.
“Yesterday I was informed by Red Bull that operationally I would no longer be involved with the business or the team moving forward from after this gathering,” he said.
“I will still remain employed by the company but operationally the baton will be handed over. And that obviously came as a shock.
“What I have had time to do is to reflect over the last 12 hours or so and I wanted to stand in front of all of you and just express my gratitude to each and every single member of the team that has given so much during the last 20 and a half years.”
Horner recalled how, after Red Bull took over the Jaguar team in 2005, he had walked into two run-down buildings and began working towards building what became a powerhouse in Formula One.
“Watching and being part of this team has been the biggest privilege in my life,” he said, to applause from the assembled employees.
Horner’s sacking, a seismic moment for the sport despite warning tremors, raises immediate questions about the future of star driver Max Verstappen.
The Dutch driver, who won his fourth title in a row last year, has a contract to 2028 but is wanted by both Mercedes and Aston Martin and has performance clauses that make an early exit possible.
Verstappen’s importance is fundamental. The most sought-after driver on the grid is an absolute number one in a team struggling to find anyone else who can get even close to him on the track.
The champion has scored 165 of his team’s 172 points in 12 races so far this season and has had three teammates in less than a year.
But he is only third in the championship, his hopes of a fifth crown this season receding fast with a hefty 69 points now between him and McLaren’s leader Oscar Piastri.
If Verstappen leaves, whose seat does he take? Will it be his old Mercedes foe George Russell or Italian 18-year-old rookie KimiAntonelli? And where will they go?
Horner had once been seen as the glue that bound a winning team, the young leader of a group whose success confounded those who dismissed them as just an energy drink brand, and shook up the sport.
Then, after Red Bull won eight drivers’ titles and six constructors’ championships and 124 races, the empire began to fall apart.
The death of Red Bull co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz in October 2022 removed a key pillar of support for Horner and led to reports of a power struggle between the team’s Austrian and Thai owners.
Then in early 2024, after the most dominant season in the sport’s history with Red Bull taking 21 wins in 22 races and Max Verstappen the third of his four titles, Horner faced allegations of misconduct from a female employee.
He denied them, and was cleared after an investigation, but that was not the end of the story for a man in office since 2005, the only principal Red Bull have had since entering the sport as constructors.
