Former Red Bull boss Christian Horner has opened up about his departure from the team and reflected on how brutal it was. An F1 legend in his own right, Horner was fired unceremoniously from the team in 2025 as an 18-month-long intra-team political battle came to an end.
Christian Horner joined Red Bull in 2005 when the team was bought from Jaguar. From that point onwards, Horner went on to transform the outfit from a backmarker or a midfield team to a frontrunner. Red Bull won its first championship in 2010 and went on a four-year dominant run with Sebastian Vettel as the lead driver.
After struggling to find a power unit supplier for some time, the Christian Horner-led operation finally put everything together in 2021 to go on another four-year run. From 2021 to 2024, Red Bull won two constructors’ championships and four drivers’ championships, but Christian Horner was still shown the door in mid-2025.
The former Red Bull boss was given a day’s notice when he was informed that he was being fired with immediate effect and then released from his role. Since then, Christian Horner has maintained a low profile in the media, but with a new book coming out, he had a chat with The Guardian and revealed how brutal his departure felt in the manner in which it was executed. Talking about how things have normalized a bit between him and Oliver Mintzlaff now, he said,
“It felt particularly brutal and sad to finish in that manner. But I now have a reasonable relationship with Oliver Mintzlaff [the CEO of corporate projects at Red Bull]. He rang the other day and thanked me for all I’d done for the engine.”
He added,
“The dismissal was painful. Very painful. I didn’t really process it till a month later because, in the immediate aftermath, I focused on supporting my daughter [Olivia] through a hideous period.”
Christian Horner on feeling sadness at not seeing the Red Bull powertrain come to light
Red Bull picked up its very first race win as a manufacturer when Max Verstappen won in Malaysia. This was RBPT’s first win in the sport, a project that was Christian Horner’s brainchild and something he had worked on for four years before he got fired. Horner admitted that he was happy to see the success of the project, but it was painful not to see the RBPT PU come to life in person. He said,
“When I started at Red Bull, there were under 400 people. When I left, there was 2,200. I poured my heart and soul into that business and convinced people to leave other teams for Red Bull. I never had a big turnover in staff because there was tremendous loyalty over a long period. The startup engine business had been founded in 2021, and I was about to get it on the track when I left. I felt great sadness in not seeing that engine in a car.”
Christian Horner has since had his name linked with multiple teams, but his return to the sport continues to depend on whether he’ll have a stake within a team or not. The former Red Bull boss is adamant that he’ll only return if he has a stake within the team, and there’s no other route that he’d prefer.
