{"id":442614,"date":"2026-01-28T09:23:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T09:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/442614\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T09:23:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T09:23:10","slug":"former-red-bull-boss-christian-horner-set-for-shock-f1-return-through-struggling-outfit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/442614\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Red Bull boss Christian Horner set for shock F1 return through struggling outfit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christian Horner<\/a>‘s absence from Formula 1<\/a> may be short-lived.<\/p>\n

Horner, the famed former Red Bull<\/a> boss who was fired by the company last July<\/a>, is among a group eyeing a possible investment into the struggling Alpine<\/a> team.<\/p>\n

The French outfit confirmed Horner’s interest in a statement this week.<\/p>\n

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\"Former<\/p>\n

Former Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner.\u00a0Kym Illman via Getty Images. <\/p>\n

In December 2023, Alpine finalized the sale of a 24 per cent stake to American sports-investment firm Otro Capital and a group of investors that included golf pro Rory McIlroy, NFL stars Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, boxer Anthony Joshua and actor Ryan Reynolds.<\/p>\n

Otro in recent months has explored selling its stake, meeting with potential investors. Enter Horner.<\/p>\n

“It is no secret that Otro Capital has held preliminary talks to sell its stake in the team,” Alpine said in the statement.<\/p>\n

“The team is regularly approached and contacted from potential investors, particularly given Otro Capital declared exploratory talks have taken place. One of those parties to express an interest is a group of investors, which also includes Christian Horner.”<\/p>\n

Reports of Otro’s potential interest in selling surfaced in October of last year, with Markets Group reporting that Otro’s initial investment of roughly $1.4 billion in 2023 would likely fetch far more money in a sale.<\/p>\n

Horner, 52, led Red Bull for 20 years but was officially terminated last August. He had been dismissed by the team’s parent company, Red Bull GmbH, after the British Grand Prix a month earlier.<\/p>\n

In his time at Red Bull, Horner oversaw 124 grand prix wins, eight driver titles \u2013 four by Max Verstappen and four for Sebastian Vettel \u2013 and six constructors’ titles.<\/p>\n

No official reason was given for Horner’s dismissal at the time, though the team was struggling to keep up with McLaren in the standings as questions arose about the future of Verstappen and rumours swirled about a power struggle between Horner and some other senior leaders at Red Bull.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Horner \u2013 who is married to Geri Halliwell of Spice Girls fame \u2013 had been embroiled in scandal over inappropriate behaviour with a female colleague multiple times, allegations he denied. Horner’s settlement with Red Bull at the time of his termination (he was under contract into the 2030s) was believed to be worth as much as $150 million.<\/p>\n

After finishing last in the F1 team standings last season, Alpine is switching from Renault to Mercedes for its power program for 2026.<\/p>\n

“Currently, the primary focus for the team is to be more competitive on track in 2026 which, with the new regulation era, presents a unique opportunity to show a sustainable recovery of performance,” Alpine added in its statement.<\/p>\n

F1 teams are currently in Barcelona for a pre-season shake down, before two official tests in Bahrain.<\/p>\n

The F1 season gets underway proper at the Australian Grand Prix<\/a> in Melbourne on March 8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christian Horner‘s absence from Formula 1 may be short-lived. Horner, the famed former Red Bull boss who was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-442614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442614","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=442614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}