{"id":369273,"date":"2025-12-24T17:43:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T17:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/369273\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T17:43:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T17:43:07","slug":"max-verstappen-reveals-continued-contact-with-christian-horner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/369273\/","title":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen reveals continued contact with Christian Horner"},"content":{"rendered":"

Max Verstappen <\/a>has revealed that he remained in contact with ousted ex-Red Bull boss Christian Horner during his and the team\u2019s stunning 2025 Formula 1<\/a> comeback.<\/p>\n

The Dutchman mounted an extraordinary resurgence in the final third of the season, overturning a deficit of over 100 points to lose out on the title by just two at the final round.<\/p>\n

Verstappen scored five wins from the resumption of the summer break in August and finished on the podium in all other races.<\/p>\n

It set up an unlikely but thrilling showdown against the McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, with Norris just managing to wrestle the title from him.<\/p>\n

At the time of Horner\u2019s firing from the Milton Keynes-based squad<\/a> in July, both the team and Verstappen were down and out, and seemingly out of contention.<\/p>\n

But under the direction of Laurent Mekies, it continued to develop its tricky RB21 car to give Verstappen a platform to make a firm challenge.<\/p>\n

Verstappen told Viaplay that the team\u2019s shareholders were keen for a change, which led to the split with Horner, something he indicated he felt sadness over.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings weren\u2019t going well within the team in terms of\u00a0results, and there was a bit of unrest, and when things aren\u2019t going well for a while, it\u2019s the shareholders who want to see change,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, it\u2019s just difficult because you\u2019ve built up a bond with Christian and achieved so much together, especially those moments in 2021, which you\u2019ll never forget.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cChristian ultimately went through fire for me, and things like that are difficult when you talk to each other on the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MaxMax Verstappen found himself back at the front after Christian Horner was fired by Red Bull, but did not correlate the two <\/p>\n

Verstappen praises Horner for \u2018achieving a great deal\u2019 with Red Bull F1 successes<\/p>\n

When asked if that meant Verstappen had indeed continued to speak to the 51-year-old \u2013 who is thought to be plotting his return to F1 \u2013 he revealed he had.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery week, during every race on Friday, Saturday and Sunday,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe sends me messages, for example, but we also keep in touch during holidays. It\u2019s more about him saying: \u2018I wish you the best of luck, and I believe in you. I\u2019m your biggest fan, blah blah\u2019, but also about what we\u2019ve all been through.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn those kinds of situations and beyond, you also talk about things other than racing. We are in contact every race weekend, even after his dismissal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, Horner\u2019s exit and Mekies\u2019 arrival saw a huge spike in improvement from the Red Bull team, which, to many, may have made the decision to dismiss the former look correct.<\/p>\n

But Verstappen was cautious about taking a view similar to this, instead praising Horner\u2019s involvement in the team\u2019s rise from newcomers in 2005 to eight-time F1 champions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to be careful about how I express that, I don\u2019t want to disparage Christian, because he has obviously achieved a great deal in the team, and others have yet to achieve that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe also brought people into the team who helped us achieve this, and when things aren\u2019t going well, you see changes happening in other sports too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Verstappen, having committed his future to Red Bull earlier in the summer, will now prepare for the 2026 season ahead of its new engine alliance with Ford, and with new team-mate Isack Hadjar.<\/p>\n

READ MORE \u2013 Max Verstappen slams \u2018weird question\u2019 about Red Bull revival since Christian Horner firing
<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen has revealed that he remained in contact with ousted ex-Red Bull boss Christian Horner during his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,817,71584,825,806,805,803,804,15196,85],"class_list":["post-369273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-horner","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-redbull","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369273","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=369273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}