{"id":154712,"date":"2025-09-23T05:59:05","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T05:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/154712\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T05:59:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T05:59:05","slug":"christian-horner-formally-leaves-red-bull-team-with-80m-payoff-christian-horner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/154712\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian Horner formally leaves Red Bull team with \u00a380m payoff | Christian Horner"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christian Horner has formally left the Red Bull Formula One team with what is understood to be an \u00a380m settlement after his dismissal in July as team principal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Horner was relieved of \u201coperational duties\u201d by the team\u2019s parent company, Red Bull GmbH, shortly after the British Grand Prix<\/a>, concluding more than 18 months of turmoil.<\/p>\n

The statement on Monday, issued by Red Bull<\/a> and Horner, officially marks the end of the 51-year-old\u2019s career with the team which he had led for 20 years since its first season in 2005. He had a contract with Red Bull until 2030. The team\u2019s parent company, as is normal in such cases, has not confirmed any figures.<\/p>\n

The announcement was made the day after Red Bull secured their second consecutive victory<\/a> under Horner\u2019s replacement, Laurent Mekies, at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

Horner led Red Bull from the relatively humble beginnings of what had been the Jaguar team to extraordinary success, with eight drivers\u2019 and six constructors\u2019 titles. But his final year and a half in charge was marked by controversy and a decline in the team\u2019s form.<\/p>\n

At the start of 2024, accusations of inappropriate behaviour were made by an employee against Horner \u2013 he was cleared by an investigation<\/a> \u2013 and caused no little unrest within the team. That was followed by the loss of a number of key personnel, including the enormously successful designer, Adrian Newey, the sporting director, Jonathan Wheatley, and the head of strategy, Will Courtenay.<\/p>\n

Although Max Verstappen went on to win the title<\/a>, their car was increasingly off the pace and there was open dissent against Horner from Verstappen\u2019s father, Jos, who had called for him to be removed<\/a> amid a power struggle between the principal and Red Bull\u2019s parent company.<\/p>\n

Fears that Verstappen might leave the team, with the car proving to be even further off the pace this season, are believed to have played a central part in Horner\u2019s dismissal, which was orchestrated by Red Bull GmbH\u2019s chief executive officer of corporate projects and investments, Oliver Mintzlaff.<\/p>\n

It is reported the agreement will allow Horner to return to work in F1 as early as next spring although Red Bull have not confirmed this. He is believed to want to return to the sport as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend\u2019s action<\/p>\n

Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n

Before he was sacked Horner was understood to have been of interest for a move to Ferrari but they have since extended the contract of the team principal, Fred Vasseur.<\/p>\n

Cadillac, who will enter F1 next season<\/a>, have already ruled out Horner, but he has been linked to a potential consortium looking into buying the Alpine team; he is close friends with Flavio Briatore, Alpine\u2019s executive advisor. However Alpine\u2019s parent company, Renault, has repeatedly dismissed suggestions the team is for sale.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeading Red Bull Racing has been an honour and privilege,\u201d Horner\u2019s statement read. \u201cWhen we started in 2005, none of us could have imagined the journey ahead \u2013 the championships, the races, the people, the memories. I\u2019m incredibly proud of what we achieved as a team breaking records and reaching heights no one would ever believe were possible and I will forever carry that with me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christian Horner has formally left the Red Bull Formula One team with what is understood to be an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1687,372,6537,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-154712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-f1","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154712","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=154712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}