POWER POLITICS PLOTS

Anatomy of a downfall

- Mark Hughes

From the ruins of Jaguar, Christian Horner shaped Red Bull to become one of F1's giants. His dismissal in July shocked all. Mark Hughes looks back at the events that toppled a king

July 8, 2025 London

Tuesday morning, two days after the British Grand Prix. Christian Horner is attending a meeting called the previous day by the Red Bull company’s senior Austrian management ostensibly to continue a conversation which had taken place at the preceding Austrian Grand Prix. But a conversation which in reality had been ongoing almost from the moment Dietrich Mateschitz died in October 2022.

This was the conclusion of that long discussion. He was being relieved of his duties with several years still on his contract - for reasons they didn’t care to disclose to him. A financial agreement was reached and the following morning Horner informed his staff by way of an emotional farewell speech. At least they’d granted him that. But otherwise there wasn’t much in the way of ceremony. Not for a boss who had, over a two-decades run, turned a minnow team into a shark, with 124 grand prix victories, six world constructors' championships and eight drivers' titles along the way.

July 9, 2025 Milton Keynes

Horner gathered as many as his 2000 staff as was possible around the factory floor to impart the news. There was disbelief, there were tears. But immediately after, he was obliged to leave the premises. Forever. It had been a wild ride.

January 7, 2005 Milton Keynes