Horner says Red Bull’s push for more HQ control preceded his exit

Christian Horner says Red Bull’s drive to bring more control back to its head office differed from the autonomy the Formula 1 team had enjoyed in Milton Keynes, as he reflected on the changes that preceded his departure as team principal.

Speaking at Autosport Business Exchange in New York, Horner said he felt Red Bull changing after co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz died at the end of 2022. Mateschitz had made the company’s major decisions, Horner said, and the organization was bound to evolve after his death.

As the group evolved, Horner said, there was a drive to bring more control back to headquarters. He described that as a different direction from the autonomy Red Bull Racing and its Milton Keynes operation had enjoyed. He did not call the shift right or wrong, but said it was not the approach he believed had enabled the team’s earlier success.

His position had also become more precarious after Mateschitz’s death: he lacked the backing of Max Verstappen’s camp and was losing support from the Yoovidhya family, whose member Chalerm Yoovidhya is a majority owner of Red Bull.

Horner has described the news of his dismissal as “pretty abrupt and quite brutal”. Red Bull dismissed him in July 2025 and replaced him with Laurent Mekies, ending his two-decade tenure as team principal.