{"id":348521,"date":"2025-12-15T00:46:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T00:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/348521\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T00:46:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T00:46:10","slug":"helmut-marko-unleashes-at-christian-horner-red-bull-future-max-verstappen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/348521\/","title":{"rendered":"Helmut Marko unleashes at Christian Horner, Red Bull future, Max Verstappen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Recently departed Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko has launched an extraordinary attack on former team principal Christian Horner, accusing him of playing \u201cdirty games\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Watch The Ashes 2025\/26 LIVE and ad-break free during play with FOX CRICKET on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? <a href=\"https:\/\/kayosports.com.au?pg=cricket&amp;extcamp=fsaeditoriallinkcricket-edt-fsp-lnk-awr-grc-cri-kyo&amp;channel=fsa&amp;campaign=fsacontra&amp;voucher=\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Marko made the claim in an interview with Dutch publication De Limburger, where he also seemed to refute at least some parts of Red Bull\u2019s official press release confirming his exit.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"i-amphtml-fill-content i-amphtml-replaced-content\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765088290_713_poster-fallback.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Marko\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com.au\/motorsport\/formula-one\/where-does-verstappen-stand-after-another-key-red-bull-exit\/news-story\/a53937eb11e27015fe43ecc400076f0d\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">departure was announced last week<\/a>, coming just a few months after Red Bull sacked Horner as team principal. <\/p>\n<p>The 82-year-old Austrian had been front and centre of Red Bull\u2019s remarkable run in F1 since their arrival on the grid back in 2005, helping them to six constructors\u2019 championships and eight drivers\u2019 titles.<\/p>\n<p>Marko was responsible for Red Bull\u2019s young driver programme and was behind Sebastian Vettel\u2019s four titles, along with Verstappen\u2019s emergence as one of the all-time greats.<\/p>\n<p>As for his relationship with Horner, Marko recommended Red Bull company founder Dietrich Mateschitz sign him on as the youngest team principal in Formula 1 history having known Horner since Formula 3000. <\/p>\n<p>But when Mateschitz died in 2022, Marko found himself at the centre of what appeared to be a power struggle at Red Bull and pointed the finger at Horner for doing \u201ceverything he could\u201d to seize control for himself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTogether with Didi (Mateschitz), I founded Red Bull Racing in 2005. We appointed Horner as team principal, and I was there as a supervisor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn principle, the power was always in Austria &#8211; we made the decisions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI remember a party earlier that year (2022), ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix, Didi was there but not in good health. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cChristian came up to me and said \u2018he won\u2019t make it to the end of the year\u2019. From that moment on, Christian began cozying up to Chalerm Yoovidhya (Red Bull\u2019s Thai co-owner).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen Didi passed away later that year, Christian did everything he could to take control of the company with Yoovidhya\u2019s support. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn behalf of \u2018Austria\u2019, I did everything possible to prevent that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Norris claims maiden World Title | 03:41<\/p>\n<p>Marko went on to claim that the final few years working with Horner were \u201cnot pleasant\u201d and alleged the former Red Bull team principal played \u201cdirty games\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDo you remember when it was claimed that I said Mexicans were less focused than Dutch or German people during Sergio P\u00e9rez\u2019s time? That was fabricated \u2013 possibly by them (Horner\u2019s camp),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Marko also pointed to rumours in 2024 that claimed he had spread a story about Red Bull\u2019s engine development being behind schedule and that they would lose Ford as a partner as a result.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI never said that,\u201d Marko insisted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut (I think) Horner wanted to use it to have me suspended. Because of Max\u2019s support in Jeddah, that didn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Verstappen snaps back at reporter | 00:49<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, Horner was sacked as team principal in July.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMore and more often, we were able to prove that Horner lied about all sorts of things,\u201d Marko said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnce Chalerm realised that too, he changed his mind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As for Marko\u2019s departure, Red Bull\u2019s official statement suggested that the 82-year-old decided to walk away. <\/p>\n<p>Marko, however, said the release was \u201cfull of nonsense\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t want to go into too much detail, but I didn\u2019t read that press release full of nonsense,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet\u2019s just say that a lot has changed at the team in a short period of time. You think you know people well, but in the end that turns out not to be the case&#8230; I really won\u2019t say more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Recently departed Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko has launched an extraordinary attack on former team principal Christian Horner,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,3159,1199,186508,107067,192244,192246,2057,72586,817,813,816,653,4405,1737,825,192243,186513,192245,13833,851,85,13773,2062,192242,188813],"class_list":["post-348521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-austria","tag-christian-horner","tag-claims-maiden","tag-company-founder","tag-dirty-games","tag-engine-development","tag-europe","tag-extraordinary-attack","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-fox-sports-news","tag-helmut-marko","tag-lando-norris","tag-max-verstappen","tag-official-press-release","tag-post-race-media-session","tag-power-struggle","tag-press-release","tag-sebastian-vettel","tag-sports","tag-team-principal","tag-western-europe","tag-young-driver-programme","tag-youngest-team-principal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}