{"id":785708,"date":"2026-07-07T22:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T22:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/785708\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T22:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T22:54:10","slug":"f1-news-2026-christian-horner-return-to-paddock-british-grand-prix-silverstone-byd-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/785708\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 News 2026: Christian Horner return to paddock, British Grand Prix Silverstone, BYD comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

It took exactly a year for ousted paddock figure Christian Horner<\/a> to step back into the Formula 1<\/a> orbit.<\/p>\n

Nearly a year to the day of his sacking from Red Bull at the British Grand Prix<\/a>, Horner\u2019s visit marked his first appearance since his abrupt exit from the Milton Keynes outfit in July 2025. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Christian Horner returns to the F1 grid after a year. \u00a0 Jayce Illman<\/p>\n

Ever since his departure, the Briton has been a magnet for paddock gossip, with rumours tying him to everything from a minority stake in Alpine to spearheading a potential 12th grid entry backed by automotive giant BYD.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst time I\u2019ve come back, so it\u2019s great to be back here at Silverstone,\u201d Horner told\u00a0Sky Sports F1.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, I\u2019m a fan. I\u2019ve not missed one since \u201993, so it\u2019s good to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, I\u2019ve enjoyed my time out. I did 20 years straight with the Red Bull guys. I was obviously doing other stuff before that, so it\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve ever had a bit of time to get off the hamster wheel,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut for me, I\u2019d only look at doing the right thing, something that really had an opportunity to win at the end of the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe great thing is that Formula 1 is in such a great place, and the racing\u2019s been super this year. Stepping back and watching it from behind the scenes, the interest in Formula 1 is sky-high.\u201d <\/p>\n

Horner\u2019s ousting of the paddock was expected to only be for a short period, after 20 years at the helm of Red Bull<\/a>, F1 supremos are few and far between for incoming teams. <\/p>\n

Take BYD, for example. <\/p>\n

For the Chinese manufacturer, which reportedly has the green light from FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem to join the grid as a 12th team<\/a>, Horner\u2019s track record as a winner would be impossible to overlook.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo there\u2019s so much interest from people who want to get involved in Formula 1. We\u2019ll see. I\u2019m in no rush,\u201d Horner admitted. <\/p>\n

\u201cBYD. Huge entity, huge, huge, huge company. But\u00a0there has been so much speculation. I think I\u2019ve been [linked] to every team on the grid so far, so I\u2019m just here to enjoy the racing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lately, Horner has been gently dipping his toes back into the wider motorsport world. <\/p>\n

He was spotted at MotoGP in April<\/a> and has been connected, at least loosely, to just about every team in the F1 paddock in a relentless rumour mill. But his high-profile appearance at Silverstone has thrust him squarely back into the spotlight, forcing the paddock to confront the reality of his eventual return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It took exactly a year for ousted paddock figure Christian Horner to step back into the Formula 1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":785709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-785708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785708","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=785708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/785709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}