Former Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has been accused of lying in an extraordinary attack by Helmut Marko.
It comes after Red Bull GmbH announced earlier this week that Marko will leave his role as a senior advisor after more than 20 years, following Horner out the exit door.
Helmut Marko takes aim at Christian Horner in astonishing interview
This article was originally published on December 14 2025
Horner was abruptly sacked by Red Bull in the aftermath of this year’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone, bringing an end to his two-decade stint in charge of the Milton Keynes team.
The 52-year-old’s final years in charge were dominated by controversy, with Horner twice cleared of wrongdoing after allegations of inappropriate behaviour by a Red Bull staff member.
Horner was also faced with rumours of a Red Bull power struggle following the death of founder Dietrich Mateschitz in 2022, with the former team principal also having an uneasy relationship with Jos Verstappen, the father of Red Bull’s star driver Max Verstappen.
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In an astonishing interview with Dutch publication De Limburger, Marko claimed that Horner “started cosying up” to Chalerm Yoovidhya, the Thai businessman and majority shareholder of Red Bull GmbH, in the months before Mateschitz’s death in 2022.
Put to him that Horner’s departure marked the end of the power struggle between the pair, Marko replied: “That’s how it’s always been described in the media, but it wasn’t personal.
“Together with Didi [Mateschitz], I founded Red Bull Racing in 2005. We appointed Horner as team principal, and I was there as supervisor.
“In principle, the power always lay in Austria; we made the decisions.
“I remember a party in 2022 prior to the Austrian Grand Prix. Didi was there, but he wasn’t in good health.
“Christian came up to me and said: ‘He won’t make it to the end of the year.’
“From that moment on, he started cosying up to Chalerm Yoovidhya.
“When Didi passed away later that year, he did everything he could to take over with Yoovidhya’s support.
“On behalf of ‘Austria’, I did everything I could to prevent that from happening.”
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Marko went on to claim that “dirty games” were played behind the scenes at Red Bull during Horner’s tenure.
“Those last few years with Horner were not pleasant. There were dirty games being played,” he said.
“Do you remember me saying, during Sergio Perez’s time, that Mexicans are less focused than the Dutch or Germans? That was fabricated, perhaps by them.”
Marko was referring to an incident at the 2023 Italian Grand Prix, when he told Red Bull’s own television channel ServusTV: “We know that [Perez] has problems in qualifying, he has fluctuations in form, he is South American and he is just not as completely focused in his head as Max [Verstappen] is or as Sebastian [Vettel].”
It led to an apology from Marko being issued shortly afterwards: “I would like to apologise for my offensive remark and want to make it absolutely clear that I do not believe that we can generalise about the people from any country, any race, any ethnicity.
“I was trying to make a point that Checo [Perez] has fluctuated in his performance this year, but it was wrong to attribute this to his cultural heritage.”
Speaking about another alleged fabrication, Marko told De Limburger, “Just like I supposedly spread the rumour in 2024 that the development of our engine was behind schedule and that we would therefore lose Ford as our sponsor.
“I never said that, but Horner wanted to use it to suspend me. Because Max stepped in at Jeddah, it didn’t happen.”
Rumours of a possible suspension emerged in the early stages of the F1 2024 season, but were understood to be related to an investigation into the leaking of alleged information pertaining to a separate internal investigation into Horner’s behaviour, information which ended up being sent to members of the F1 media.
Marko acknowledged the possibility of action being taken against him when he spoke to the media ahead of the 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, but following peace talks, he was not suspended.
Verstappen spoke up about the rumours of Marko being suspended that weekend, insisting that the departure of the Red Bull advisor would be “not good for my situation as well.”
Horner appeared to lose the support of Yoovidhya before his departure in mid-2025, to which Marko put forward another allegation, albeit without any example: “We were increasingly able to prove that Horner was lying about all sorts of things.
“Once Chalerm realised this too, he had a change of heart.”
The interview with De Limburger also appeared to contradict the messaging from Red Bull GmbH that Marko had made his own decision to walk away from the F1 team, a decision Red Bull CEO Oliver Mintzlaff said he “deeply regretted.”
Marko labelled the press release from the parent company as “full of nonsense” and that he had to quickly call Max Verstappen to inform him of his departure, suggesting that the Austrian had little say over the timeline of his split or the confirmation from GmbH.
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
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