{"id":11730,"date":"2025-07-21T00:52:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T00:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/11730\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T00:52:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T00:52:09","slug":"tearful-red-bull-f1-staff-ordered-to-smile-more-after-being-rocked-by-christian-horner-axe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/11730\/","title":{"rendered":"Tearful Red Bull F1 staff ordered to ‘smile more’ after being rocked by Christian Horner axe"},"content":{"rendered":"

TEARFUL\u00a0staff rocked by Red Bull chief Christian Horner\u2019s axing have been ordered to \u201csmile more\u201d\u00a0by their new Austrian and German bosses.<\/p>\n

Loyal workers were stunned when the British Formula One team\u2019s supremo Horner, 51,\u00a0was ousted following a stellar 20-year reign.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Max<\/a><\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

Red Bull staff have been told to ‘smile more’ despite being upset over Christian Horner’s exitCredit: AFP\"Christian<\/a><\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

The ace was brutally fired earlier this month in a surprise meetingCredit: AP<\/p>\n

He helped\u00a0Red Bull win eight drivers\u2019 championships<\/a> and six constructors\u2019 crowns.<\/p>\n

And sources told SunSport new Austrian boss Helmut Marko upset staff who gathered to meet him at the team\u2019s HQ in Milton Keynes \u2014 with some now threatening to quit.<\/a><\/p>\n

A female Red Bull\u00a0worker revealed: \u201cIt was only a day after Christian was sacked\u00a0and a lot of the team were\u00a0still upset when Mr Marko addressed us.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut he just made\u00a0a joke of it and told\u00a0us to cheer up \u2014 he said, \u2018You need to smile more\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t endear him to anyone as what is there to smile about?\u201d<\/p>\n

Horner\u2019s<\/a> roles as chief executive officer and team\u00a0principal have been usurped by\u00a0Austrian team adviser Marko, 82, and German ex-football\u00a0official Oliver Mintzlaff, 49.<\/p>\n

While French engineer and motorsport exec Laurent Mekies, 48, was quickly unveiled as Horner\u2019s replacement last week.<\/p>\n

But insiders have insisted Mintzlaff and Marko are now the men in the driving seat \u2014 and revealed their first address to staff at Milton Keynes was\u00a0a \u201ccar crash\u201d.<\/p>\n

BEST FREE BETS AND BETTING SIGN UP OFFERS<\/a><\/p>\n

Mintzlaff sparked more anger when he joked about the brutal axing of senior staff including Horner, chief marketing officer Oliver Hughes and director of communications Paul Smith.<\/p>\n

Horner was summoned to London on July 9 believing he was attending a regular team meeting.<\/p>\n

Christian Horner ‘in tears’ during farewell speech to Red Bull employees as sacked boss admits decision came as ‘shock’<\/p>\n

But he was then relieved of his duties on the spot and put on gardening leave.<\/p>\n

Hughes and Smith were called into an office and also told they were no longer part of Red Bull\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

They were escorted out of the building after having their company devices taken from them \u2014 leaving hundreds of staff with no bosses to answer to.<\/p>\n

And another staff member told SunSport: \u201cMintzlaff\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200aalso said, \u2018If you have any problems, just text your line manager\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen he added, \u2018Oh,\u00a0and if you don\u2019t have a line manager any more,\u00a0just text me!\u2019 and started laughing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Red Bull supremo Horner knew nothing of the plans to get rid of him, 18 months after he was accused of a sexting scandal which broke the heart of his Spice Girl wife Geri, 52.<\/p>\n

And the \u00a312million-a-year chief was replaced within 24 hours by Marko and Mintzlaff,\u00a0 who arrived to address staff members, 90 per cent of whom are British.<\/p>\n

Emotional Red Bull insiders spoke in depth for the first time yesterday over their shock at the loss of their boss.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They also laid bare the chaos that is now gripping this once\u00a0 all-conquering F1 team.<\/p>\n

\"Illustration<\/a><\/p>\n

And long-standing family friends who have spoken to Horner admitted\u00a0he was left\u00a0stunned by his ruthless removal.<\/p>\n

One told SunSport: \u201cChristian told me how hurt and betrayed he\u00a0felt after all that he and Geri and their family have been through over the past\u00a018 months.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was cleared twice over the texting scandal but is now on gardening leave and has still been given no explanation why he\u2019s lost the job he loved.<\/p>\n

\u201cRed Bull\u2019s Austrian bosses have always resented the fact that\u00a0so much of their F1 success was down to a team that Christian built in Britain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is what lies behind this \u2014 as well as the hangover from the terrible headlines last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cChristian was called to a London meeting and had no idea what it was about.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was just told, \u2018You have to be there\u2019 and was dumbfounded when he was ushered\u00a0into a room and effectively sacked on the spot.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt left him totally blindsided \u2014 he thought he\u2019d been called in to speak about another issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the staff are nearly all Brits and are fiercely loyal to him and are now talking about walking out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a targeted attack for control of the race team because Red Bull\u2019s Austrian\u00a0HQ didn\u2019t like a British man running their race team.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut now the team is in chaos \u2014 Red Bull at Milton Keynes has hit the skids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Red Bull\u2019s Austrian-based HQ was approached for comment yesterday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEARFUL\u00a0staff rocked by Red Bull chief Christian Horner\u2019s axing have been ordered to \u201csmile more\u201d\u00a0by their new Austrian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[6539,1687,372,6537,371,7627,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-11730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-christian-horner","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-formula1","12":"tag-red-bull-racing","13":"tag-section-sportmotorsport","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}